Checkstyle


Checkstyle is a static code analysis tool used in software development for checking if Java source code complies with coding rules.
Originally developed by Oliver Burn back in 2001, the project is maintained by a team of developers from around the world.
The current stable release is version 8.34 which is targeted at the Java 8 language.

Advantages and limits

The programming style adopted by a software development project can help to ensure that the code complies with good programming practices which improves the quality, readability, re-usability of the code and may reduce the cost of development. The checks performed by Checkstyle are mainly limited to the presentation of the code. These checks do not confirm the correctness or completeness of the code.

Examples of available modules

Checkstyle defines a set of available modules, each of which provides rules checking with a configurable level of strictness. Each rule can raise notifications, warnings, and errors. For example, Checkstyle can examine the following:
Checkstyle is available as a JAR file which can run inside a Java VM or as an Apache Ant task. It can also be integrated into an IDE or other tools.