PMD CLI reference

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Options

The tool comes with a rather extensive help text, simply running with -help!

Option	Description	Default value	Applies to
-rulesets <refs> -R <refs>	Required Comma-separated list of ruleset or rule references.
-dir <path> -d <path>	Required Root directory for the analyzed sources.
-format <format> -f <format>	Output format of the analysis report. The available formats are described here.	text
-auxclasspath <cp>	Specifies the classpath for libraries used by the source code. This is used to resolve types in source files. Alternatively, a file:// URL to a text file containing path elements on consecutive lines can be specified.		Java
-benchmark -b	Enables benchmark mode, which outputs a benchmark report upon completion. The report is sent to standard error.	false
-cache <path>	Specifies a location for the analysis cache file to use. This can greatly improve analysis performance and is highly recommended.
-debug -verbose -D -V	Debug mode. Prints more log output.	false
-encoding <charset> -e <charset>	Specifies the character set encoding of the source code files PMD is reading. The valid values are the standard character sets of java.nio.charset.Charset.	UTF-8
-failOnViolation <bool> --failOnViolation <bool>	Specifies whether PMD exits with non-zero status if violations are found. By default PMD exits with status 4 if violations are found. Disable this feature with -failOnViolation false to exit with 0 instead and just output the report.	true
-filelist <files>	Path to file containing a comma delimited list of files to analyze. If this is given, then you don't need to provide -dir.
-help -h -H	Display help on usage.	false
-language <lang> -l <lang>	Specify the language PMD should use.
-minimumpriority <num> -min <num>	Rule priority threshold; rules with lower priority than configured here won't be used.	5
-norulesetcompatibility	Disables the ruleset compatibility filter. The filter is active by default and tries to automatically "fix" old ruleset files with old rule names	false
-no-cache	Explicitly disables incremental analysis. This switch turns off suggestions to use Incremental Analysis, and causes the -cache option to be discarded if it is provided.	false
-property <name>=<value> -P <name>=<value>	Specifies a property for the report renderer. The option can be specified several times.	[]
-reportfile <path> -r <path>	Path to a file in which the report output will be sent. By default the report is printed on standard output.
-shortnames	Prints shortened filenames in the report.	false
-showsuppressed	Causes the suppressed rule violations to be added to the report.	false
-stress -S	Performs a stress test.	false
-suppressmarker <marker>	Specifies the comment token that marks lines which PMD should ignore.	NOPMD
-threads <num> -t <num>	Sets the number of threads used by PMD. Set threads to 0 to disable multi-threading processing.	1
-uri <uri> -u <uri>	Database URI for sources. If this is given, then you don't need to provide -dir.		PLSQL
-version <version> -v <version>	Specify the version of a language PMD should use.

Exit Status

Please note that if PMD detects any violations, it will exit with status 4 (since 5.3). This behavior has been introduced to ease PMD integration into scripts or hooks, such as SVN hooks.

0	Everything is fine, no violations found
1	Couldn't understand command-line parameters or PMD exited with an exception
4	At least one violation has been detected, unless -failOnViolation false is set.

Supported Languages

• apex (Salesforce Apex)
• java
• ecmascript (JavaScript)
• jsp
• plsql
• vf (Salesforce VisualForce)
• vm (Apache Velocity)
• xml and xsl

Available Report Formats

PMD comes with many different renderers. The mnemonics in bold are used to select them on the command line, as arguments to the -format option. Some formats accept properties, which can be specified with the -property option on the command-line.

• codeclimate: Renderer for Code Climate JSON format.

• csv: Comma-separated values tabular format.

  Properties:

  • problem: Include problem column. Default: true.
  • package: Include package column. Default: true.
  • file: Include file column. Default: true.
  • priority: Include priority column. Default: true.
  • line: Include line column. Default: true.
  • desc: Include description column. Default: true.
  • ruleSet: Include Rule set column. Default: true.
  • rule: Include Rule column. Default: true.

• emacs: GNU Emacs integration.

• html: HTML format.

  Properties:

  • linePrefix: Prefix for line number anchor in the source file.
  • linkPrefix: Path to HTML source.

• ideaj: IntelliJ IDEA integration.

  Properties:

  • classAndMethodName: Class and method name, pass .method when processing a directory.
  • sourcePath:
  • fileName:

• summaryhtml: Summary HTML format.

  Properties:

  • linePrefix: Prefix for line number anchor in the source file.
  • linkPrefix: Path to HTML source.

• text: Text format.

• textcolor: Text format, with color support (requires ANSI console support, e.g. xterm, rxvt, etc.).

  Properties:

  • color: Enables colors with anything other than false or 0. Default: yes.

• textpad: TextPad integration.

• vbhtml: Vladimir Bossicard HTML format.

• xml: XML format.

  Properties:

  • encoding: XML encoding format, defaults to UTF-8.

• xslt: XML with a XSL transformation applied.

  Properties:

  • encoding: XML encoding format, defaults to UTF-8.
  • xsltFilename: The XSLT file name.

• yahtml: Yet Another HTML format.

  Properties:

  • outputDir: Output directory.