29 May 2021
The PMD team is pleased to announce PMD 6.35.0.
This is a minor release.
The latest version of Rhino, the implementation of JavaScript we use for parsing JavaScript code, requires at least Java 8. Therefore we decided to upgrade the pmd-javascript module to Java 8 as well. This means that from now on, a Java 8 or later runtime is required in order to analyze JavaScript code. Note that PMD core still only requires Java 7.
This release ships with 3 new Java rules.
JUnit5TestShouldBePackagePrivate
enforces the convention that JUnit 5 tests should have minimal visibility.
You can try out this rule like so:
<rule ref="category/java/bestpractices.xml/JUnit5TestShouldBePackagePrivate" />
CognitiveComplexity uses the cognitive complexity
metric to find overly complex code. This metric improves on the similar cyclomatic complexity
in several ways, for instance, it incentivizes using clearly readable shorthands and idioms.
See the rule documentation for more details. You can try out this rule like so:
<rule ref="category/java/design.xml/CognitiveComplexity" />
MutableStaticState finds non-private static fields
that are not final. These fields break encapsulation since these fields can be modified from anywhere
within the program. You can try out this rule like so:
<rule ref="category/java/design.xml/MutableStaticState" />
CompareObjectsWithEquals has now a new property
typesThatCompareByReference. With that property, you can configure types, that should be whitelisted
for comparison by reference. By default, java.lang.Enum and java.lang.Class are allowed, but
you could add custom types here.
Additionally comparisons against constants are allowed now. This makes the rule less noisy when two constants
are compared. Constants are identified by looking for an all-caps identifier.The java rule DefaultPackage has been deprecated in favor of
CommentDefaultAccessModifier.
The rule “DefaultPackage” assumes that any usage of package-access is accidental, and by doing so, prohibits using a really fundamental and useful feature of the language.
To satisfy the rule, you have to make the member public even if it doesn’t need to, or make it protected,
which muddies your intent even more if you don’t intend the class to be extended, and may be at odds with
other rules like AvoidProtectedFieldInFinalClass.
The rule CommentDefaultAccessModifier should be used instead.
It flags the same thing, but has an escape hatch.
The Java rule CloneThrowsCloneNotSupportedException has been deprecated without
replacement.
The rule has no real value as CloneNotSupportedException is a
checked exception and therefore you need to deal with it while implementing the clone() method. You either
need to declare the exception or catch it. If you catch it, then subclasses can’t throw it themselves explicitly.
However, Object.clone() will still throw this exception if the Cloneable interface is not implemented.
Note, this rule has also been removed from the Quickstart Ruleset (rulesets/java/quickstart.xml).
PMD#doPMD is deprecated.
Use PMD#runPMD instead.PMD#run is deprecated.
Use PMD#runPMD instead.ThreadSafeReportListener and the methods to use them in Report
(addListener,
getListeners, addListeners)
are deprecated. This functionality will be replaced by another TBD mechanism in PMD 7.