PMD is an extensible multilanguage static code analyzer. It finds common programming flaws like unused variables, empty catch blocks, unnecessary object creation, and so forth. It's mainly concerned with Java and Apex, but supports 16 other languages. It comes with 400+ built-in rules. It can be extended with custom rules. It uses JavaCC and Antlr to parse source files into abstract syntax trees (AST) and runs rules against them to find violations. Rules can be written in Java or using a XPath query.

Currently, PMD supports Java, JavaScript, Salesforce.com Apex and Visualforce, Kotlin, Swift, Modelica, PLSQL, Apache Velocity, JSP, WSDL, Maven POM, HTML, XML and XSL. Scala is supported, but there are currently no Scala rules available.

Additionally, it includes CPD, the copy-paste-detector. CPD finds duplicated code in Coco, C/C++, C#, Dart, Fortran, Gherkin, Go, Groovy, HTML, Java, JavaScript, JSP, Julia, Kotlin, Lua, Matlab, Modelica, Objective-C, Perl, PHP, PLSQL, Python, Ruby, Salesforce.com Apex and Visualforce, Scala, Swift, T-SQL, Typescript, Apache Velocity, WSDL, XML and XSL.

Download the latest binary zip from the releases and extract it somewhere.

Execute bin/pmd check or bin\pmd.bat check.

See also Getting Started

Demo:

This shows how PMD analyses openjdk:

There are plugins for Maven and Gradle as well as for various IDEs. See Tools / Integrations

• How do I? -- Ask a question on StackOverflow or on discussions.
• I got this error, why? -- Ask a question on StackOverflow or on discussions.
• I got this error and I'm sure it's a bug -- file an issue.
• I have an idea/request/question -- create a new discussion.
• I have a quick question -- ask in our Gitter room or our PMD Guru at Gurubase.
• Where's your documentation? -- https://docs.pmd-code.org/latest/

Pull requests are welcome. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

Our latest source of PMD can be found on GitHub. Fork us!

For details, see How to contribute to PMD.

The rule designer is developed over at pmd/pmd-designer. Please see its README for developer documentation.

Become a financial contributor and help us sustain our community. Contribute

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!

See credits for the complete list.

BSD Style