Maven PMD plugin does not honour exclude-pattern in PMD rulesets

he..

i have the same problem with it. It seems that this issue is too unimportant to change.

So i looked into the source... and i asked me, why isn't the pmd.main() used to call pmd ?!
(ok, there is not so much configuration possible... )
But the latest pmd version can easily be configured...

any suggestions?

thanks...

Hi,

i have the same problem.
It would be nice if this bug will be fixed.

Thank you.

Hi,

I'm having the same problem. In our case, it's quite important and in fact a showstopper for using the plugin in our project.

The use case is as follows: I need to work with some complex XML schema's. After ws-import/xjc compilation, I end up with more than a 1000 generated classes, that cause many PMD violations. These classes need to be excluded to get useful reports, and to get acceptable PMD plugin
performance.

Kind regards,
Frans van Buul

if somebody gives a patch, I'm ready to review it

I'm not sure if it is perfect, but it looks it works in the test and also in my own project.

Is this bug still open?? Because I just tried the same thing and it works for me. I put this in the configuration section

<excludes>
   <exclude>**/jaxb/**/*.java</exclude>
</excludes>

I am using maven-pmd-plugin version 2.6. Maybe the bug status needs to be updated.

Does anyone have a sample project that we can use to test this?

This has been fixed, but I don't know in which version. I have projects that successfully uses <excludes> to exclude files from PMD.

It's not fixed!
Yes, the "<excludes>" in maven works well, I use it, but the issue is about the <exclude-pattern> ...
But, the "<exclude-pattern>" doesn't work in a ruleset xml file (like explained in the url listed in the original issue).

I just tested it several times against 2.5. I changed the package pattern, etc... but didn't got it to work. The only way I got it to exclude to run the rule against the gwt pacakges was to exclude the complete file that contains the rulesets ... See below for details, I hope this helps.

Example: I use it to exclude rules against google GWT code.
My pom snippet:

<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-pmd-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.5</version>
<configuration>
<rulesets>
<ruleset>../rulesets/basic.xml</ruleset>
....
....
<ruleset>../rulesets/safeGwt.xml</ruleset>
</rulesets>
<linkXref>true</linkXref>-->
<sourceEncoding>utf-8</sourceEncoding>
<minimumTokens>100</minimumTokens>
<targetJdk>$

</targetJdk>
<excludes>
<exclude>**/Assert.java</exclude>
</excludes>
</configuration>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>bla</groupId>
<artifactId>project containing the rulesets in the classpath.</artifactId>
<version>$

</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>$

</phase>
<goals>
<goal>check</goal>
<goal>cpd-check</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>

And the safeGwt.xml contains (not all rules included):

<ruleset name="Custom ruleset" xmlns="http://pmd.sourceforge.net/ruleset/2.0.0"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://pmd.sourceforge.net/ruleset/2.0.0
http://pmd.sourceforge.net/ruleset_2_0_0.xsd">

<!-- Exclude the gwt packages -->
<exclude-pattern>./gwt/.</exclude-pattern>

<rule name="NonThreadSafeSingleton" message="Singleton is not thread safe"
class="net.sourceforge.pmd.rules.design.NonThreadSafeSingleton"
[... all rule details ...]
</rule>

</ruleset>

Ed,

Can you please zip up a complete sample project that shows off this issue.
Without one it is very difficult for us to verify it.

Sorry, not possible, too complex, too big (many maven parents, many projects...etc..), and the client will not allow me...

> Without one it is very difficult for us to verify it.
Why?
My idea: create an eclipse project, copy the above to maven snippet in a maven pom.xml, create the ruleset, create some included and exlcuded pacakges, and test it..
I don't understand your comment...

BTW: I get the idea, from googling about this issue that the plugin exclude is the same as ruleset exclude-pattern and is only used in the "root" ruleset. I can't find the exact link anymore, but I read something about that....
In my case the rulsets are all defined in the pom.xml, which is then the "root", and only the contained exclude in ht pom.xml is then used, any other nested excluded like exclude-pattern are simple ignored...
In case of ANT, you are can include a ruleset directly in the ant file, which is then the "root" such that the contained exlude-pattern in the ruleset is then used and other nested exclude-pattern's are ignored..

Ofcourse this is very restricted and confusing.. but seems a possible explication.

> Without one it is very difficult for us to verify it.

Why?

My idea: create an eclipse project, copy the above to maven snippet in a maven pom.xml, create the ruleset, create some included and excluded packages, and test it..

I don't understand your comment...

Well, it's quite simple really. You have a problem that you want help solving. You have the knowledge about your configuration, what files you are using and what is going wrong.

Here's an idea: why don't you do what you suggested above, zip up the files and add them to this issue.

> Well, it's quite simple really. You have a problem that you want help solving.
> You have the knowledge about your configuration, what files you are using
> and what is going wrong.
Of course, that's why I posted the above config, that's all I can do in my side.

> Here's an idea: why don't you do what you suggested above, zip up the files and
> add them to this issue.
I still don't understand your reaction as writing your comment will cost you the same amount of time to setup the above, assuming you are a PMD plugin expert.
Good luck.