Tag: quality

Meet Sputnik – static code analyser for Gerrit

Sputnik runs Checkstyle, PMD and FindBugs for your Gerrit patchsets

I am happy to announce a first release of Sputnik! It is a static code analyzer that runs Checkstyle, PMD and FindBugs for your Gerrit patchsets. Its main advantage over my previous project Sonar Gerrit plugin is that Sputnik is a small, lightweight and standalone Java application. You don't need any other software to run it. It bundles Checkstyle, PMD and FindBugs jars within distribution zip.

Workflow

Sputnik is intended to use with Gerrit and Continous Integration server, i. e. Jenkins. It works like this:

Your CI server is updated by ssh that a new patch is submitted to Gerrit. CI fetches this patch and builds a while project. After a build, CI server reports its result to Gerrit. It's time for Sputnik now.

Sputnik runs regardless of build result (you can change that in your CI configuration). Sputnik fetches patchset's file list from Gerrit over HTTP REST API. Then it runs an analysis only on these files! Even if your project is huge, analysis on several files takes only seconds. Sputnik collects comments from all three analysers: Checkstyle, PMD and FindBugs. It sends back all comments to Gerrit via HTTP REST API back. It's very simple and very fast!

Installation and configuration

First, you need to build https://github.com/TouK/sputnik master or download distribution zip from here: sputnik-1.0.zip. Go to you CI server and extract it to a directory of your choice. Remember that a user you run CI builds needs to have an access rights to this directory (in my case it's simply a jenkins user). Then you need to prepare your configuration file and write this file to the same directory as unzipped distribution. It is a simple Java properties file, which is pretty self-explanatory. Here is an example:

gerrit.host=gerrit.yourcompany.com
gerrit.port=8080
gerrit.username=sputnik
gerrit.password=Pa$$wo4d
checkstyle.enabled=true
checkstyle.configurationFile=/opt/jenkins/sputnik/checkstyle.xml
checkstyle.propertiesFile=
pmd.enabled=true
pmd.ruleSets=/opt/jenkins/sputnik/pmd.xml
findbugs.enabled=true
findbugs.includeFilter=/opt/jenkins/sputnik/findbugs.xml
findbugs.excludeFilter=

Now you need to configure you CI server to actually run Sputnik after a build. It is very simple for Jenkins, just add a Post-Build Step. You can adjust if Sputnik runs only on successful build or for every build - use radio buttons for this:

Last line with exit 0 is a workaround for a clean exit, even if Sputnik fails for some reason. Exit 0 guarantees you that result of this step doesn't affect overall build result.

Summary

This is an example screenshot of Sputnik's comments:

Sputnik always reports +1 as a result. It can be lacking in some network and authorisation configuration. But it's open source so please submit issues and patches to its github page: https://github.com/TouK/sputnik.

Your feedback and pull requests are heartly welcome!

Meet Sputnik – static code analyser for Gerrit

Sputnik runs Checkstyle, PMD and FindBugs for your Gerrit patchsets

I am happy to announce a first release of Sputnik! It is a static code analyzer that runs Checkstyle, PMD and FindBugs for your Gerrit patchsets. Its main advantage over my previous project Sonar Gerrit plugin is that Sputnik is a small, lightweight and standalone Java application. You don't need any other software to run it. It bundles Checkstyle, PMD and FindBugs jars within distribution zip.

Workflow

Sputnik is intended to use with Gerrit and Continous Integration server, i. e. Jenkins. It works like this:

Your CI server is updated by ssh that a new patch is submitted to Gerrit. CI fetches this patch and builds a while project. After a build, CI server reports its result to Gerrit. It's time for Sputnik now.

Sputnik runs regardless of build result (you can change that in your CI configuration). Sputnik fetches patchset's file list from Gerrit over HTTP REST API. Then it runs an analysis only on these files! Even if your project is huge, analysis on several files takes only seconds. Sputnik collects comments from all three analysers: Checkstyle, PMD and FindBugs. It sends back all comments to Gerrit via HTTP REST API back. It's very simple and very fast!

Installation and configuration

First, you need to build https://github.com/TouK/sputnik master or download distribution zip from here: sputnik-1.0.zip. Go to you CI server and extract it to a directory of your choice. Remember that a user you run CI builds needs to have an access rights to this directory (in my case it's simply a jenkins user). Then you need to prepare your configuration file and write this file to the same directory as unzipped distribution. It is a simple Java properties file, which is pretty self-explanatory. Here is an example:

gerrit.host=gerrit.yourcompany.com
gerrit.port=8080
gerrit.username=sputnik
gerrit.password=Pa$$wo4d
checkstyle.enabled=true
checkstyle.configurationFile=/opt/jenkins/sputnik/checkstyle.xml
checkstyle.propertiesFile=
pmd.enabled=true
pmd.ruleSets=/opt/jenkins/sputnik/pmd.xml
findbugs.enabled=true
findbugs.includeFilter=/opt/jenkins/sputnik/findbugs.xml
findbugs.excludeFilter=

Now you need to configure you CI server to actually run Sputnik after a build. It is very simple for Jenkins, just add a Post-Build Step. You can adjust if Sputnik runs only on successful build or for every build - use radio buttons for this:

Last line with exit 0 is a workaround for a clean exit, even if Sputnik fails for some reason. Exit 0 guarantees you that result of this step doesn't affect overall build result.

Summary

This is an example screenshot of Sputnik's comments:

Sputnik always reports +1 as a result. It can be lacking in some network and authorisation configuration. But it's open source so please submit issues and patches to its github page: https://github.com/TouK/sputnik.

Your feedback and pull requests are heartly welcome!

Custom SonarQube rules for Unit Tests

I need a new rule

In our project we use (formely Sonar) to manage our code quality. It is a great tool and I recommend everyone to set it up and read its reports.

Recently, we've agreed that it's better to use assertj assertions in our unit tests than JUnit's. So I've decided to write a simple rule that checks if some of JUnit asserts assertTrue, assertFalse, assertNull and others are used. Then, I've discovered it's not so easy to do it with Sonar:

  • only 10 code quality rules are applied to unit tests - they are in special repository PMD Unit Tests (source)
  • these 10 rules are disabled by default, you have to enable them by hand
  • you cannot add new rules to this group

However, it turned out it is doable with a small tricks.

Custom PMD Unit Tests rule tutorial

Create your XPath expression by following this tutorial on how to create custom PMD rule. There is a visual editor to test your rules as you develop them - that's great. My XPath expression to avoid all JUnit assertions looks like this:

//PrimaryPrefix/Name[@Image='assertEquals' or @Image='assertNull' or @Image='assertNotNull' or @Image='assertSame' or @Image='assertNotSame' or @Image='assertArrayEquals' or @Image='assertTrue' or @Image='assertFalse']

Go to your Sonar installation, log in as an Administrator, head to Quality Profiles and select a profile that you use. Search for "xpath" and change Activation to Any. You should see two results like this:

Expand XPath rule template (dont' worry that it says it's deprecated) and then click Copy rule. Fill a form with message and XPath and save it. Then take a look at the bottom - you need an identifier of this rule:

You have created a PMD rule, now you need to move it to PMD Unit Tests group. Connect to Sonar's MySQL database. Search for your rule by key:

mysql> select id, plugin_rule_key, plugin_name, parent_id, status from rules where plugin_rule_key='XPathRule_1385721910';
+-----+----------------------+----------------+-----------+-------------+
| id  | plugin_rule_key      | plugin_name    | parent_id | status      |
+-----+----------------------+----------------+-----------+-------------+
| 903 | XPathRule_1385721910 | pmd            |      NULL | DEPRECATED  |
+-----+----------------------+----------------+-----------+-------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Update plugin_name and status (remember to use appropiate primary key for id column):

mysql> update rules set plugin_name='pmd-unit-tests', status='READY' where id=903;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
Rows matched: 1  Changed: 1  Warnings: 0

There is one step left. Sonar will change this rule's status to REMOVED on restart due to his boot checks. You need to trick him and change parent_id to other's PMD Unit Tests rule. List all these rules and choose one's identifier.

mysql> select id, plugin_name, status from rules where plugin_name='pmd-unit-tests';
+-----+----------------+---------+
| id  | plugin_name    | status  |
+-----+----------------+---------+
| 775 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 776 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 777 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 778 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 779 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 780 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 781 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 782 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 783 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 784 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 903 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
+-----+----------------+---------+
11 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Choose any id you like, let's say 775 and apply it as parent_id to your newly created rule:

mysql> update rules set parent_id=775 where id=903;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
Rows matched: 1  Changed: 1  Warnings: 0

Go to your Quality profile and make sure your rule is active! Check it twice, it's easy to forget that step. It's all set up, enjoy your analysis!

Custom SonarQube rules for Unit Tests

I need a new rule

In our project we use (formely Sonar) to manage our code quality. It is a great tool and I recommend everyone to set it up and read its reports.

Recently, we've agreed that it's better to use assertj assertions in our unit tests than JUnit's. So I've decided to write a simple rule that checks if some of JUnit asserts assertTrue, assertFalse, assertNull and others are used. Then, I've discovered it's not so easy to do it with Sonar:

  • only 10 code quality rules are applied to unit tests - they are in special repository PMD Unit Tests (source)
  • these 10 rules are disabled by default, you have to enable them by hand
  • you cannot add new rules to this group

However, it turned out it is doable with a small tricks.

Custom PMD Unit Tests rule tutorial

Create your XPath expression by following this tutorial on how to create custom PMD rule. There is a visual editor to test your rules as you develop them - that's great. My XPath expression to avoid all JUnit assertions looks like this:

//PrimaryPrefix/Name[@Image='assertEquals' or @Image='assertNull' or @Image='assertNotNull' or @Image='assertSame' or @Image='assertNotSame' or @Image='assertArrayEquals' or @Image='assertTrue' or @Image='assertFalse']

Go to your Sonar installation, log in as an Administrator, head to Quality Profiles and select a profile that you use. Search for "xpath" and change Activation to Any. You should see two results like this:

Expand XPath rule template (dont' worry that it says it's deprecated) and then click Copy rule. Fill a form with message and XPath and save it. Then take a look at the bottom - you need an identifier of this rule:

You have created a PMD rule, now you need to move it to PMD Unit Tests group. Connect to Sonar's MySQL database. Search for your rule by key:

mysql> select id, plugin_rule_key, plugin_name, parent_id, status from rules where plugin_rule_key='XPathRule_1385721910';
+-----+----------------------+----------------+-----------+-------------+
| id  | plugin_rule_key      | plugin_name    | parent_id | status      |
+-----+----------------------+----------------+-----------+-------------+
| 903 | XPathRule_1385721910 | pmd            |      NULL | DEPRECATED  |
+-----+----------------------+----------------+-----------+-------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Update plugin_name and status (remember to use appropiate primary key for id column):

mysql> update rules set plugin_name='pmd-unit-tests', status='READY' where id=903;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
Rows matched: 1  Changed: 1  Warnings: 0

There is one step left. Sonar will change this rule's status to REMOVED on restart due to his boot checks. You need to trick him and change parent_id to other's PMD Unit Tests rule. List all these rules and choose one's identifier.

mysql> select id, plugin_name, status from rules where plugin_name='pmd-unit-tests';
+-----+----------------+---------+
| id  | plugin_name    | status  |
+-----+----------------+---------+
| 775 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 776 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 777 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 778 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 779 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 780 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 781 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 782 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 783 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 784 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
| 903 | pmd-unit-tests | READY   |
+-----+----------------+---------+
11 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Choose any id you like, let's say 775 and apply it as parent_id to your newly created rule:

mysql> update rules set parent_id=775 where id=903;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
Rows matched: 1  Changed: 1  Warnings: 0

Go to your Quality profile and make sure your rule is active! Check it twice, it's easy to forget that step. It's all set up, enjoy your analysis!