Package com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks.header

Class HeaderCheck

java.lang.Object
com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.api.AutomaticBean
com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.api.AbstractViolationReporter
com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.api.AbstractFileSetCheck
com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks.header.AbstractHeaderCheck
com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks.header.HeaderCheck
All Implemented Interfaces:
Configurable, Contextualizable, ExternalResourceHolder, FileSetCheck
public class HeaderCheck extends AbstractHeaderCheck

Checks that a source file begins with a specified header. Property headerFile specifies a file that contains the required header. Alternatively, the header specification can be set directly in the header property without the need for an external file.

Property ignoreLines specifies the line numbers to ignore when matching lines in a header file. This property is very useful for supporting headers that contain copyright dates. For example, consider the following header: 

 line 1: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
 line 2: // checkstyle:
 line 3: // Checks Java source code for adherence to a set of rules.
 line 4: // Copyright (C) 2002  Oliver Burn
 line 5: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Since the year information will change over time, you can tell Checkstyle to ignore line 4 by setting property ignoreLines to 4.

In default configuration, if header is not specified, the default value of header is set to null and the check does not rise any violations.

  • Property headerFile - Specify the name of the file containing the required header. Type is java.net.URI. Default value is null.
  • Property charset - Specify the character encoding to use when reading the headerFile. Type is java.lang.String. Default value is the charset property of the parent <a href="https://checkstyle.org/config.html#Checker">Checker</a> module.
  • Property header - Specify the required header specified inline. Individual header lines must be separated by the string "\n" (even on platforms with a different line separator), see examples below. Type is java.lang.String. Default value is null.
  • Property ignoreLines - Specify the line numbers to ignore. Type is int[]. Default value is "".
  • Property fileExtensions - Specify the file type extension of files to process. Type is java.lang.String[]. Default value is "".

To configure the check such that no violations arise. Default values of properties are used. 

 <module name="Header"/>

To configure the check to use header file "config/java.header" and ignore lines 2, 3, and 4 and only process Java files: 

 <module name="Header">
   <property name="headerFile" value="config/java.header"/>
   <property name="ignoreLines" value="2, 3, 4"/>
   <property name="fileExtensions" value="java"/>
 </module>

To configure the check to verify that each file starts with the header 

 // Copyright (C) 2004 MyCompany
 // All rights reserved

without the need for an external header file: 

 <module name="Header">
   <property name="header"
     value="// Copyright (C) 2004 MyCompany\n// All rights reserved"/>
 </module>

Parent is com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.Checker

Violation Message Keys:

  • header.mismatch
  • header.missing
Since:
6.9

  • Field Details

    • MSG_MISSING

      public static final String MSG_MISSING
      A key is pointing to the warning message text in "messages.properties" file.
      See Also:

    • MSG_MISMATCH

      public static final String MSG_MISMATCH
      A key is pointing to the warning message text in "messages.properties" file.
      See Also:

    • EMPTY_INT_ARRAY

      private static final int[] EMPTY_INT_ARRAY
      Empty array to avoid instantiations.

    • ignoreLines

      private int[] ignoreLines
      Specify the line numbers to ignore.

  • Constructor Details

    • HeaderCheck

      public HeaderCheck()

  • Method Details

    • isIgnoreLine

      private boolean isIgnoreLine(int lineNo)
      Returns true if lineNo is header lines or false.
      Parameters:
      lineNo - a line number
      Returns:
      if lineNo is one of the ignored header lines.

    • isMatch

      private boolean isMatch(int lineNumber, String line)
      Checks if a code line matches the required header line.
      Parameters:
      lineNumber - the line number to check against the header
      line - the line contents
      Returns:
      true if and only if the line matches the required header line

    • setIgnoreLines

      public void setIgnoreLines(int... list)
      Setter to specify the line numbers to ignore.
      Parameters:
      list - comma separated list of line numbers to ignore in header.

    • processFiltered

      protected void processFiltered(File file, FileText fileText)
      Description copied from class: AbstractFileSetCheck
      Called to process a file that matches the specified file extensions.
      Specified by:
      processFiltered in class AbstractFileSetCheck
      Parameters:
      file - the file to be processed
      fileText - the contents of the file.

    • postProcessHeaderLines

      protected void postProcessHeaderLines()
      Description copied from class: AbstractHeaderCheck
      Hook method for post processing header lines. This implementation does nothing.
      Specified by:
      postProcessHeaderLines in class AbstractHeaderCheck