This document describes how to run checkstyle using the command line tool. The latest version of checkstyle can be found at http://checkstyle.sourceforge.net. This command line tool is included in the checkstyle distribution.
The easiest way is to include checkstyle-all-2.3.jar in the classpath. This contains all the classes required to run checkstyle. Alternatively, you must include the following in the classpath:
The command line usage is:
java -D<property>=<value> \ com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.Main \ [-f <format>] [-p <propertiesFile>] [-o <file>] [-r <dir>] file...
Checkstyle will process the specified files and by default report errors to standard out in plain format. The options are:
The default behaviour of checkstyle can be changed either by setting system properties using the -D<property>=<value>
arguments to java or by specifying a property file using the -p
option. If a property file is specified the system properties are ignored. The following table describes what properties can be set:
Property | Description |
checkstyle.lcurly.type | Specifies the policy of where to put the left brace '{' for type declarations. The legal values are defined here. Defaults to "eol". |
checkstyle.lcurly.method | Specifies the policy of where to put the left brace '{' for method declarations. The legal values are defined here. Defaults to "eol". |
checkstyle.lcurly.other | Specifies the policy of where to put the left brace '{' for other declarations. The keywords covered is defined here. The legal values are defined here. Defaults to "eol". |
checkstyle.rcurly | Specifies the policy of where to put the right brace '}'. The keywords covered is defined here. The legal values are defined here. Defaults to "same". |
checkstyle.paren.pad | Specifies the policy of how to pad parenthesises. The legal values are defined here. Defaults to "nospace". |
checkstyle.block.try | Specifies the policy of how check try blocks. The legal values are defined here. Defaults to "stmt". |
checkstyle.block.catch | Specifies the policy of how check catch blocks. The legal values are defined here. Defaults to "text". |
checkstyle.block.finally | Specifies the policy of how check finally blocks. The legal values are defined here. Defaults to "text". |
checkstyle.wrap.operator | Specifies the policy of how to wrap on operators. The legal values are defined here. Defaults to "nl". |
checkstyle.allow.protected | Indicates whether to allow protected data. Defaults to "no". |
checkstyle.allow.tabs | Indicates whether to allow tabs. Defaults to "no". |
checkstyle.allow.package | Indicates whether to allow package visible data. Defaults to "no". |
checkstyle.allow.noauthor | Indicates whether to allow no @author tag to be defined for class and interface Javadoc comments. Defaults to "no". |
checkstyle.maxlinelen | Specifies the maximum line length. Default value is defined here. |
checkstyle.tab.width | The distance between tab stops, used in line number and column calculations. Default value is "8". |
checkstyle.ignore.maxlinelen | Specifies a regular expression for lines to ignore in maximum line length checks. Defaults to "^$". |
checkstyle.ignore.importlength | Specifies whether to ignore the maximum line length for import statements. Defaults to "no". |
checkstyle.maxmethodlen | Specifies the maximum method length. Default value is defined here. |
checkstyle.maxconstructorlen | Specifies the maximum constructor length. Default value is defined here. |
checkstyle.maxfilelen | Specifies the maximum file length. Default value is defined here. |
checkstyle.pattern.todo | Specifies the regular expression to match for to-do comments. Default value is defined here. |
checkstyle.pattern.member | Specifies the regular expression to match against member variables. Default value is defined here. |
checkstyle.pattern.publicmember | Specifies the regular expression to match against public member variables. Default value is defined here. |
checkstyle.pattern.parameter | Specifies the regular expression to match against parameters. Default value is defined here. |
checkstyle.pattern.const | Specifies the regular expression to match against static/final variables. Default value is defined here. |
checkstyle.pattern.static | Specifies the regular expression to match against static variables. Default value is defined here. |
checkstyle.pattern.type | Specifies the regular expression to match against type names. Default value is defined here. |
checkstyle.pattern.method | Specifies the regular expression to match against method names. Default value is defined here. |
checkstyle.pattern.localvar | Specifies the regular expression to match against local variable names. Default value is defined here. |
checkstyle.header.file | Specifies the file containing the header lines. Default is to not check. |
checkstyle.header.regexp | Specifies whether to interpret each line in the checkstyle.header.file as a regular expression. Default is "no". |
checkstyle.header.ignoreline | Specifies a comma separated list of the lines in the header to ignore when comparing. Default is to not ignore any line. |
checkstyle.javadoc.scope | Specifies the visibility scope where javadoc comments are checked. Valid values are "nothing", "public", "protected", "package", "private" and "anoninner". Defaults to "private". |
checkstyle.require.packagehtml | Specifies whether to require that package documentation is available. Defaults to "no". |
checkstyle.ignore.imports | Specifies whether to ignore checking import statements. Defaults to "no". |
checkstyle.illegal.imports | Comma separated list of package prefixes that are not allowed in import statements. Defaults to "sun". |
checkstyle.illegal.instantiations | Comma separated list of fully qualified class names that are not allowed to be instantiated. Defaults to "". |
checkstyle.ignore.whitespace | Specifies whether to ignore checking whitespace. Defaults to "no". |
checkstyle.ignore.whitespace.cast | Specifies whether to ignore checking for whitespace after a cast. Defaults to "no". |
checkstyle.ignore.braces | Specifies whether to ignore checking braces. Defaults to "no". |
checkstyle.ignore.longell | Specifies whether to ignore checking the L in long integer literals. Defaults to "false". |
checkstyle.ignore.public.in.interface | Specifies whether to ignore the public keyword in interface definitions. Defaults to "no". |
checkstyle.cache.file | Specifies the name of a file that can be used to cache details of files that pass checkstyle. This can signicantly increase the speed of checkstyle on successive runs. |
checkstyle.javadoc.checkUnusedThrows | Specifies whether to check if unused @throws tags are subclasses of java.lang.RuntimeException. Defaults to "false". |
checkstyle.basedir | Specifies a base directory for reporting file names relative to. Defaults to "". |
Older versions of the checkstyle task supported the boolean parameters checkstyle.javadoc.relax and checkstyle.javadoc.ignore. These parameters have been removed because they were conflicting with each other and the semantics of relaxJavadoc was not specified. The two parameters have been replaced by the checkstyle.javadoc.scope parameter. Instead of checkstyle.javadoc.ignore=true you can now use checkstyle.javadoc.scope=nothing. The behaviour of checkstyle.javadoc.relax=true is roughly the same as checkstyle.javadoc.scope=protected.
Run checkstyle on a file
java com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.Main Check.java
Run checkstyle on all java files in a directory
java com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.Main -r src/
Run checkstyle on a file and allow tabs
java -Dcheckstyle.allow.tabs=yes \ com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.Main Check.java
Run checkstyle on a file and output to a file in XML format
java -Dcheckstyle.allow.tabs=yes \ com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.Main \ -f xml -o build/checkstyle_errors.xml Check.java
Run checkstyle on a file and disable pattern matching
java -Dcheckstyle.pattern.parameter=. \ -Dcheckstyle.pattern.static=. \ -Dcheckstyle.pattern.const=. \ -Dcheckstyle.pattern.member=. \ com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.Main Check.java
It is possible to run Checkstyle directly from the JAR file using the -jar option. Example would be:
java -jar checkstyle-all-2.3.jar Check.java
Copyright © 2001 Oliver Burn. All rights Reserved.