Index of all built-in rules available for Java
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Best Practices

Rules which enforce generally accepted best practices.

Code Style

Rules which enforce a specific coding style.

Design

Rules that help you discover design issues.
  • AbstractClassWithoutAnyMethod: If an abstract class does not provides any methods, it may be acting as a simple data containerth…
  • AvoidCatchingGenericException: Avoid catching generic exceptions such as NullPointerException, RuntimeException, Exception in tr…
  • AvoidDeeplyNestedIfStmts: Avoid creating deeply nested if-then statements since they are harder to read and error-prone to …
  • AvoidRethrowingException: Catch blocks that merely rethrow a caught exception only add to code size and runtime complexity.
  • AvoidThrowingNewInstanceOfSameException: Catch blocks that merely rethrow a caught exception wrapped inside a new instance of the same typ…
  • AvoidThrowingNullPointerException: Avoid throwing NullPointerExceptions manually. These are confusing because most people will assum…
  • AvoidThrowingRawExceptionTypes: Avoid throwing certain exception types. Rather than throw a raw RuntimeException, Throwable,Excep…
  • ClassWithOnlyPrivateConstructorsShouldBeFinal: A class with only private constructors should be final, unless the private constructoris invoked …
  • CollapsibleIfStatements: Sometimes two consecutive ‘if’ statements can be consolidated by separating their conditions with…
  • CouplingBetweenObjects: This rule counts the number of unique attributes, local variables, and return types within an obj…
  • CyclomaticComplexity: The complexity of methods directly affects maintenance costs and readability. Concentrating too m…
  • DataClass: Data Classes are simple data holders, which reveal most of their state, andwithout complex functi…
  • DoNotExtendJavaLangError: Errors are system exceptions. Do not extend them.
  • ExceptionAsFlowControl: Using Exceptions as form of flow control is not recommended as they obscure true exceptions when …
  • ExcessiveClassLength: Excessive class file lengths are usually indications that the class may be burdened with excessiv…
  • ExcessiveImports: A high number of imports can indicate a high degree of coupling within an object. This rule count…
  • ExcessiveMethodLength: When methods are excessively long this usually indicates that the method is doing more than itsna…
  • ExcessiveParameterList: Methods with numerous parameters are a challenge to maintain, especially if most of them share th…
  • ExcessivePublicCount: Classes with large numbers of public methods and attributes require disproportionate testing effo…
  • FinalFieldCouldBeStatic: If a final field is assigned to a compile-time constant, it could be made static, thus saving ove…
  • GodClass: The God Class rule detects the God Class design flaw using metrics. God classes do too many thing…
  • ImmutableField: Identifies private fields whose values never change once they are initialized either in the decla…
  • LawOfDemeter: The Law of Demeter is a simple rule, that says “only talk to friends”. It helps to reduce couplin…
  • LogicInversion: Use opposite operator instead of negating the whole expression with a logic complement operator.
  • LoosePackageCoupling: Avoid using classes from the configured package hierarchy outside of the package hierarchy, excep…
  • ModifiedCyclomaticComplexity: Deprecated Complexity directly affects maintenance costs is determined by the number of decision points in a…
  • NcssConstructorCount: Deprecated This rule uses the NCSS (Non-Commenting Source Statements) algorithm to determine the number of l…
  • NcssCount: This rule uses the NCSS (Non-Commenting Source Statements) metric to determine the number of line…
  • NcssMethodCount: Deprecated This rule uses the NCSS (Non-Commenting Source Statements) algorithm to determine the number of l…
  • NcssTypeCount: Deprecated This rule uses the NCSS (Non-Commenting Source Statements) algorithm to determine the number of l…
  • NPathComplexity: The NPath complexity of a method is the number of acyclic execution paths through that method.Whi…
  • SignatureDeclareThrowsException: A method/constructor shouldn’t explicitly throw the generic java.lang.Exception, since itis uncle…
  • SimplifiedTernary: Look for ternary operators with the form ‘condition ? literalBoolean : foo’or ‘condition ? foo : …
  • SimplifyBooleanAssertion: Avoid negation in an assertTrue or assertFalse test.For example, rephrase: assertTrue(!expr);a…
  • SimplifyBooleanExpressions: Avoid unnecessary comparisons in boolean expressions, they serve no purpose and impacts readability.
  • SimplifyBooleanReturns: Avoid unnecessary if-then-else statements when returning a boolean. The result ofthe conditional …
  • SimplifyConditional: No need to check for null before an instanceof; the instanceof keyword returns false when given a…
  • SingularField: Fields whose scopes are limited to just single methods do not rely on the containingobject to pro…
  • StdCyclomaticComplexity: Deprecated Complexity directly affects maintenance costs is determined by the number of decision points in a…
  • SwitchDensity: A high ratio of statements to labels in a switch statement implies that the switch statementis ov…
  • TooManyFields: Classes that have too many fields can become unwieldy and could be redesigned to have fewer field…
  • TooManyMethods: A class with too many methods is probably a good suspect for refactoring, in order to reduce itsc…
  • UselessOverridingMethod: The overriding method merely calls the same method defined in a superclass.
  • UseObjectForClearerAPI: When you write a public method, you should be thinking in terms of an API. If your method is publ…
  • UseUtilityClass: For classes that only have static methods, consider making them utility classes.Note that this do…

Documentation

Rules that are related to code documentation.
  • CommentContent: A rule for the politically correct… we don’t want to offend anyone.
  • CommentRequired: Denotes whether comments are required (or unwanted) for specific language elements.
  • CommentSize: Determines whether the dimensions of non-header comments found are within the specified limits.
  • UncommentedEmptyConstructor: Uncommented Empty Constructor finds instances where a constructor does notcontain statements, but…
  • UncommentedEmptyMethodBody: Uncommented Empty Method Body finds instances where a method body does not containstatements, but…

Error Prone

Rules to detect constructs that are either broken, extremely confusing or prone to runtime errors.

Multithreading

Rules that flag issues when dealing with multiple threads of execution.
  • AvoidSynchronizedAtMethodLevel: Method-level synchronization can cause problems when new code is added to the method.Block-level …
  • AvoidThreadGroup: Avoid using java.lang.ThreadGroup; although it is intended to be used in a threaded environmentit…
  • AvoidUsingVolatile: Use of the keyword ‘volatile’ is generally used to fine tune a Java application, and therefore, r…
  • DoNotUseThreads: The J2EE specification explicitly forbids the use of threads.
  • DontCallThreadRun: Explicitly calling Thread.run() method will execute in the caller’s thread of control. Instead, …
  • DoubleCheckedLocking: Partially created objects can be returned by the Double Checked Locking pattern when used in Java…
  • NonThreadSafeSingleton: Non-thread safe singletons can result in bad state changes. Eliminatestatic singletons if possibl…
  • UnsynchronizedStaticDateFormatter: SimpleDateFormat instances are not synchronized. Sun recommends using separate format instancesfo…
  • UseConcurrentHashMap: Since Java5 brought a new implementation of the Map designed for multi-threaded access, you canpe…
  • UseNotifyAllInsteadOfNotify: Thread.notify() awakens a thread monitoring the object. If more than one thread is monitoring, th…

Performance

Rules that flag suboptimal code.
  • AddEmptyString: The conversion of literals to strings by concatenating them with empty strings is inefficient.It …
  • AppendCharacterWithChar: Avoid concatenating characters as strings in StringBuffer/StringBuilder.append methods.
  • AvoidArrayLoops: Instead of manually copying data between two arrays, use the efficient Arrays.copyOf or System.ar…
  • AvoidFileStream: The FileInputStream and FileOutputStream classes contains a finalizer method which will cause gar…
  • AvoidInstantiatingObjectsInLoops: New objects created within loops should be checked to see if they can created outside them and re…
  • AvoidUsingShortType: Java uses the ‘short’ type to reduce memory usage, not to optimize calculation. In fact, the JVM …
  • BigIntegerInstantiation: Don’t create instances of already existing BigInteger (BigInteger.ZERO, BigInteger.ONE) andfor Ja…
  • BooleanInstantiation: Avoid instantiating Boolean objects; you can reference Boolean.TRUE, Boolean.FALSE, or call Boole…
  • ByteInstantiation: Calling new Byte() causes memory allocation that can be avoided by the static Byte.valueOf().It m…
  • ConsecutiveAppendsShouldReuse: Consecutive calls to StringBuffer/StringBuilder .append should be chained, reusing the target obj…
  • ConsecutiveLiteralAppends: Consecutively calling StringBuffer/StringBuilder.append(…) with literals should be avoided.Sinc…
  • InefficientEmptyStringCheck: String.trim().length() is an inefficient way to check if a String is really empty, as itcreates a…
  • InefficientStringBuffering: Avoid concatenating non-literals in a StringBuffer constructor or append() since intermediate buf…
  • InsufficientStringBufferDeclaration: Failing to pre-size a StringBuffer or StringBuilder properly could cause it to re-size many times…
  • IntegerInstantiation: Calling new Integer() causes memory allocation that can be avoided by the static Integer.valueOf(…
  • LongInstantiation: Calling new Long() causes memory allocation that can be avoided by the static Long.valueOf().It m…
  • OptimizableToArrayCall: Calls to a collection’s ‘toArray(E[])’ method should specify a target array of zero size. This al…
  • RedundantFieldInitializer: Java will initialize fields with known default values so any explicit initialization of those sam…
  • ShortInstantiation: Calling new Short() causes memory allocation that can be avoided by the static Short.valueOf().It…
  • SimplifyStartsWith: Since it passes in a literal of length 1, calls to (string).startsWith can be rewritten using (st…
  • StringInstantiation: Avoid instantiating String objects; this is usually unnecessary since they are immutable and can …
  • StringToString: Avoid calling toString() on objects already known to be string instances; this is unnecessary.
  • TooFewBranchesForASwitchStatement: Switch statements are intended to be used to support complex branching behaviour. Using a switch …
  • UnnecessaryWrapperObjectCreation: Most wrapper classes provide static conversion methods that avoid the need to create intermediate…
  • UseArrayListInsteadOfVector: ArrayList is a much better Collection implementation than Vector if thread-safe operation is not …
  • UseArraysAsList: The java.util.Arrays class has a “asList” method that should be used when you want to create a ne…
  • UseIndexOfChar: Use String.indexOf(char) when checking for the index of a single character; it executes faster.
  • UselessStringValueOf: No need to call String.valueOf to append to a string; just use the valueOf() argument directly.
  • UseStringBufferForStringAppends: The use of the ‘+=’ operator for appending strings causes the JVM to create and use an internal S…
  • UseStringBufferLength: Use StringBuffer.length() to determine StringBuffer length rather than using StringBuffer.toStrin…

Security

Rules that flag potential security flaws.
  • InsecureCryptoIv: Do not use hard coded initialization vector in cryptographic operations. Please use a randomly ge…

Additional rulesets

Tags: rule_references