Checks for Size Violations

FileLengthCheck

Description

Checks for long source files.

Rationale: If a source file becomes very long it is hard to understand. Therefore long classes should usually be refactored into several individual classes that focus on a specific task.

Properties

name	description	type	default value
max	maximum allowable number of lines	integer	2000

Examples

To configure the check to accept files with up to 1500 lines:

<config name="FileLength">
      <property name="max" value="1500"/>
</config>

Package

com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks

Parent Module

TreeWalker

LineLengthCheck

Description

Checks for long lines.

Rationale: Long lines are hard to read in printouts or if developers have limited screen space for the source code, e.g. if the IDE displays additional information like project tree, class hierarchy, etc.

Properties

name	description	type	default value
ignorePattern	pattern for lines to ignore	regular expression	^$
max	maximum allowable line length	integer	80
tabWidth	number of characters to expand a tab character	integer	8

Examples

To configure the check to accept lines up to 120 characters long:

<config name="LineLength">
      <property name="max" value="120"/>
</config>

To configure the check to ignore lines that begin with " * ", followed by just one word, such as within a Javadoc comment:

<config name="LineLength">
   <property name="ignorePattern" value="^ *\* *[^ ]+$"/>
</config>

Notes

Support for the special handling of imports in CheckStyle Version 2 has been dropped as it is a special case of regexp: The user can set the ignorePattern to "^import" and achieve the same effect.

Package

com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks

Parent Module

TreeWalker

MethodLengthCheck

Description

Checks for long methods and constructors.

Rationale: If a method becomes very long it is hard to understand. Therefore long methods should usually be refactored into several individual methods that focus on a specific task.

Properties

name	description	type	default value
max	maximum allowable number of lines	integer	150
tokens	blocks to check	subset of acceptable tokens METHOD_DEF, CTOR_DEF	METHOD_DEF, CTOR_DEF

Examples

To configure the check:

<config name="MethodLength"/>

To configure the check so that it accepts methods with at most 60 lines:

<config name="MethodLength">
   <property name="tokens" value="METHOD_DEF"/>
   <property name="max" value="60"/>
</config>

Package

com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks

Parent Module

TreeWalker

ParameterNumberCheck

Description

Checks the number of parameters of a method or constructor.

Properties

name	description	type	default value
max	maximum allowable number of parameters	integer	7
tokens	declarations to check	subset of acceptable tokens METHOD_DEF, CTOR_DEF	METHOD_DEF, CTOR_DEF

Examples

To configure the check:

<config name="ParameterNumber"/>

To configure the check to allow 10 parameters for a method:

<config name="ParameterNumber">
   <property name="max" value="10"/>
   <property name="tokens" value="METHOD_DEF"/>
</config>

Package

com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks

Parent Module

TreeWalker