Analyzing code with the Maven PMD plugin

PMD is a source code analyzer. It finds common programming flaws such as unused variables, empty catch blocks, and unnecessary object creation. It also includes the Copy/Paste Detector (CPD) that finds duplicated code.

How to do it...

Use the following steps to run PMD on a Maven project:

  1. Open the Maven project for which you want to do a PMD analysis (for instance, project-with-violations).
  2. Run the following command:
    mvn pmd:pmd pmd:cpd
  3. Observe the output:
    [INFO] --- maven-pmd-plugin:3.2:pmd (default-cli) @ project-with-violations ---
[WARNING] Unable to locate Source XRef to link to – DISABLED
[INFO] --- maven-pmd-plugin:3.2:cpd (default-cli) @ project-with-violations ---
[WARNING] Unable to locate Source XRef ...

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