---
title: PMD Release Notes
permalink: pmd_release_notes.html
keywords: changelog, release notes
---

## {{ site.pmd.date }} - {{ site.pmd.version }}

The PMD team is pleased to announce PMD {{ site.pmd.version }}.

This is a {{ site.pmd.release_type }} release.

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### New and noteworthy

#### Quickstart Ruleset for Apex

PMD provides now a quickstart ruleset for Salesforce.com Apex, which you can use as a base ruleset to
get your custom ruleset started. You can reference it with `rulesets/apex/quickstart.xml`.
You are strongly encouraged to [create your own ruleset](https://pmd.github.io/pmd-6.12.0/pmd_userdocs_making_rulesets.html)
though.

The quickstart ruleset has the intention, to be useful out-of-the-box for many projects. Therefore it
references only rules, that are most likely to apply everywhere.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

#### PMD Designer

The rule designer's codebase has been moved out of the main repository and
will be developed at [pmd/pmd-designer](https://github.com/pmd/pmd-designer)
from now on. The maven coordinates will stay the same for the time being.
The designer will still be shipped with PMD's binaries.

#### New Rules

*   The new Java rule {% rule "java/design/AvoidUncheckedExceptionsInSignatures" %} (`java-design`) finds methods or constructors
    that declare unchecked exceptions in their `throws` clause. This forces the caller to handle the exception,
    even though it is a runtime exception.

*   The new Java rule {% rule "java/errorprone/DetachedTestCase" %} (`java-errorprone`) searches for public
    methods in test classes, which are not annotated with `@Test`. These methods might be test cases where
    the annotation has been forgotten. Because of that those test cases are never executed.

*   The new Java rule {% rule "java/bestpractices/WhileLoopWithLiteralBoolean" %} (`java-bestpractices`) finds
    Do-While-Loops and While-Loops that can be simplified since they use simply `true` or `false` as their
    loop condition.

### Fixed Issues

### API Changes

#### Deprecated API

*   {% jdoc core::renderers.CodeClimateRule %} is deprecated in 7.0.0 because it was unused for 2 years and
    created an unwanted dependency.
    Properties "cc_categories", "cc_remediation_points_multiplier", "cc_block_highlighting" will also be removed.
    See [#1702](https://github.com/pmd/pmd/pull/1702) for more.

*   The Apex ruleset `rulesets/apex/ruleset.xml` has been deprecated and will be removed in 7.0.0. Please use the new
    quickstart ruleset `rulesets/apex/quickstart.xml` instead.

### External Contributions

*   [#1704](https://github.com/pmd/pmd/pull/1704): \[java] Added AvoidUncheckedExceptionsInSignatures Rule - [Bhanu Prakash Pamidi](https://github.com/pamidi99)
*   [#1706](https://github.com/pmd/pmd/pull/1706): \[java] Add DetachedTestCase rule - [David Burström](https://github.com/davidburstromspotify)
*   [#1709](https://github.com/pmd/pmd/pull/1709): \[java] Detect while loops with literal booleans conditions - [David Burström](https://github.com/davidburstromspotify)

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