Can you exclude a source file for a specific PMD rule?

Question

When defining a PMD ruleset is it possible to exclude a source file from a specific rule?

I want to do something like the following:

<rule ref=rulesets/java/logging-java.xml>
  <exclude name="Ignore.java" />
</rule>

Exclude only seems to be supported for rule names. Is there anything similar for source files?

I suppose you already know that you can add `@SuppressWarnings("PMD")` before a class to exclude that class from the checks. — assylias, Jul 25 '12 at 09:57
Yes but I think I would prefer to do it via rulesets. I guess I can split my pmd rulesets in two to allow me to have exclude some classes from running with certain ruleset. — Mark, Jul 26 '12 at 07:29
Example: I need to suppress "Avoid duplicate imports" warning in a particular class. I can not use @SuppressWarnings("PMD") for that warning. — isobretatel, Jan 31 '13 at 21:17
Intereseting.. Is there a way to exclude all the classes inside a package? Let say i don't want to run PMD on my test classes located in test directory..? — Sreedhar GS, Dec 24 '14 at 02:37
@SreedharGS See "Excluding files from a ruleset" at http://pmd.sourceforge.net/pmd-5.2.3/customizing/howtomakearuleset.html — Mark, Dec 26 '14 at 22:02

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 26 '17 at 18:41

If you are using the maven-pmd-plugin tool to run PMD, then you can include a properties file listing the classes and rules to ignore.

exclude-pmd.properties

org.apache.maven.ClassA=UnusedPrivateField,EmptyCatchBlock
org.apache.maven.ClassB=UnusedPrivateField,UnusedFormalParameter,UnusedPrivateMethod

pom.xml

<project>
  ...
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-pmd-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.8</version>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <goals>
              <goal>check</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
              <excludeFromFailureFile>exclude-pmd.properties</excludeFromFailureFile>
            </configuration>
          </execution>
          <execution>
            <goals>
              <goal>cpd-check</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
              <excludeFromFailureFile>exclude-cpd.properties</excludeFromFailureFile>
            </configuration>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
  ...
</project>

More Details: https://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-pmd-plugin/examples/violation-exclusions.html

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 28 '12 at 20:18

4

Not without writing a custom rule that adds logic for excluding by file name.

I think in your scenario the best approach is to run PMD in two passes - one with the larger set of rules against all the code. And one with the smaller set of rules against the code you want extra checks on.

This does have the downside of generating two reports. But that is an easier problem to solve than the one you posed (or than creating a custom rule.) PMD can generate XML output. You can merge those programmatically and then call PMD's code to generate an HTML report at the end. Or you can just have two reports and be done right away.

answered Jul 28 '12 at 20:18

Jeanne Boyarsky

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This is an outrageous flaw of PMD, which nearly disqualifies it for use in larger (enterprise) environments. – barfuin Aug 26 '13 at 15:12
@Thomas: why? An enterprise could have different rule sets. Or add //NOPMD or @ SuppressWarnings. It's the rare rule that requires an exclusion by file. – Jeanne Boyarsky Aug 27 '13 at 00:47
3

Well, mostly because there are different kinds of *files*, let's say test cases and production code. If you think of a [Maven source folder structure](http://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-the-standard-directory-layout.html), the test cases are in `src/test/java`, so I must exclude specific rules for files in these folders. The only way to do this in Eclipse is to have separate projects for the test cases. And I'm not going to make 140 projects out of my 70 just to compensate a PMD shortcoming. – barfuin Aug 27 '13 at 08:10
@Thomas: Ah. I don't run PMD rules against my test cases. I agree it is a legitimate thing to want to do though. – Jeanne Boyarsky Aug 28 '13 at 01:09

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 23 '21 at 16:29

try this:

<rule ref="category/java/bestpractices.xml/UnusedPrivateField">
    <properties>
      <!--Ignore UnusedPrivateField on classes where the class name ends with DTO-->
      <property name="violationSuppressXPath" value="//ClassOrInterfaceDeclaration['.*DTO']"/>
    </properties>
  </rule>

You can also exclude folders. for example, you want to exclude folders having "sample" name, in this case value will be like:

value="//ClassOrInterfaceDeclaration['.*/sample/.*']"

for more details, check here https://github.com/pmd/pmd/issues/1142

robi · Answer 4 · 2015-02-16T03:01:48.867

1

It seem that PMD only support exclude files in RuleSet level.

We have the same requirement that exclude files in Rule level..

Finally, we write a customer wrapper lab and controller file traversal logic by ourself to solve this.

But for normal PMD task.. We can make same rule together as a ruleSet, and exclude it in ruleSet level.

UPDATE: we found that extends net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.rule.XPathRule, and add exclude file is simple. For Java Code Rule, we can use the same way to exclude file in Rule definition.

edited Feb 16 '15 at 03:01

answered Feb 15 '15 at 02:30

robi

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Could you write down more details on your "UPDATE"? Actual code and configuration would be good. – letmaik Dec 13 '15 at 10:43

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 12 '21 at 22:21

Yes you can.
In you code/rule use the following syntax:

<rule ref=rulesets/java/logging-java.xml>
   <property name="violationSuppressXPath" 
      value="./ancestor::ClassOrInterfaceDeclaration[matches(@SimpleName, 'Ignore')]" />
</rule>

Explanation:
From official documentation:

This property defines an XPath query to be executed using the violation node as the context node. If the XPath query matches anything, then the violation will be suppressed

Notes:

Official documentation gives examples to use contains and matches to exclude files by patterns.
Official documentation warns about using //.

Note the use of . to refer to the context node. Using // at the start of the expression should be avoided, as it would test all nodes in the file, and suppress more violations than expected.

For more info regarding XPath rules that could be used, please check this page .

Can you exclude a source file for a specific PMD rule?

5 Answers5

exclude-pmd.properties

pom.xml