PMD Release Notes

26-March-2022 - 6.44.0-SNAPSHOT

The PMD team is pleased to announce PMD 6.44.0-SNAPSHOT.

This is a minor release.

New and noteworthy

New programmatic API

This release introduces a new programmatic API to replace the inflexible PMD class. Programmatic execution of PMD should now be done with a PMDConfiguration and a PmdAnalysis, for instance:

PMDConfiguration config = new PMDConfiguration();
config.setDefaultLanguageVersion(LanguageRegistry.findLanguageByTerseName("java").getVersion("11"));
config.setInputPaths("src/main/java");
config.prependAuxClasspath("target/classes");
config.setMinimumPriority(RulePriority.HIGH);
config.addRuleSet("rulesets/java/quickstart.xml");
config.setReportFormat("xml");
config.setReportFile("target/pmd-report.xml");

try (PmdAnalysis pmd = PmdAnalysis.create(config)) {
    // note: don't use `config` once a PmdAnalysis has been created.
    // optional: add more rulesets
    pmd.addRuleSet(pmd.newRuleSetLoader().loadFromResource("custom-ruleset.xml"));
    // optional: add more files
    pmd.files().addFile(Paths.get("src", "main", "more-java", "ExtraSource.java"));
    // optional: add more renderers
    pmd.addRenderer(renderer);

    // or just call PMD
    pmd.performAnalysis();
}

The PMD class still supports methods related to CLI execution: runPmd and main. All other members are now deprecated for removal. The CLI itself remains compatible, if you run PMD via command-line, no action is required on your part.

Fixed Issues

• apex-performance
  • #3773: [apex] EagerlyLoadedDescribeSObjectResult false positives with SObjectField.getDescribe()
• core
  • #3299: [core] Deprecate system properties of PMDCommandLineInterface
• doc
  • #3812: [doc] Documentation website table of contents broken on pages with many subheadings

API Changes

Deprecated API

• Several members of PMD have been newly deprecated, including:
  • PMD#EOL: use System#lineSeparator()
  • PMD#SUPPRESS_MARKER: use DEFAULT_SUPPRESS_MARKER
  • PMD#processFiles: use the new programmatic API
  • PMD#getApplicableFiles: is internal
• PMDConfiguration#prependClasspath is deprecated in favour of prependAuxClasspath.
• PMDConfiguration#setRuleSets and getRuleSets are deprecated. Use instead setRuleSets, addRuleSet, and getRuleSetPaths.
• Several members of BaseCLITest have been deprecated with replacements.
• Several members of PMDCommandLineInterface have been explicitly deprecated. The whole class however was deprecated long ago already with 6.30.0. It is internal API and should not be used.

Experimental APIs

• Together with the new programmatic API the interface TextFile has been added as experimental. It intends to replace DataSource and SourceCode in the long term.

  This interface will change in PMD 7 to support read/write operations and other things. You don’t need to use it in PMD 6, as FileCollector decouples you from this. A file collector is available through PmdAnalysis#files.

External Contributions

• #3773: [apex] EagerlyLoadedDescribeSObjectResult false positives with SObjectField.getDescribe() - @filiprafalowicz
• #3836: [doc] Make TOC scrollable when too many subheadings - @JerritEic