Is there any open source code analyzer for java which I can adopt my software metrics algorithm on it? [closed]

Question

I am doing my masters dissertation and I have conducted a software metrics. I need to adopt my metrics on an open source tool. I have found PMD and check style on sourceforge.net but there is not adequate explanation about their codes. However, I couldn't to find their source code to customize them.

I will be appreciated, if you introduce one open source tool for java which I can customize it's code.

Answer 1

Wikipedia has a list of code analysis tools, including a section on Java tools.

FindBugs is an open source project and appears to be active as of July 2012.

This article at the Java Lobby has a list of open source tools, including JDepend and JavaNCSS. They recommend checking out Pantiopticode.

Another tool that you should check out is the Eclipse Metrics Plug In.

Answer 2

Sonar is a major open source code analysis tool from CodeHaus

You can find it here: http://www.sonarsource.org/

It normally works in conjunction with Jenkins as part of a continuous integration environment. After Jenkins completes the build Sonar picks it up and performs a wide range of analyses on it.

Answer 3

You can approach your tool from various angle, so not being entirely sure if you're set on one I'll enumerate your options. You could either:

• write a Sonar plugin which packages:
  • your own analyzer,
  • or a modification of another analyzer,
• or write a standalone analyzer or extend an existing one.

Batteries Included: Go with Sonar

As recommended by others, Sonar (source) would at the moment be considered the most prevalent and versatile code analysis tool, but it's a bit more than that: it's a continuous inspection server, integrating with a great many other tools, on top of providing its own analyzers.

Independent Analyzers

If you're looking for an existing analyzer to modify or integrate with Sonar, you may want to look at either:

• PMD (source, ),
• CheckStyle (source),
• JDepend (source),
• FindBugs (source),
• JavaNCSS (source),
• and many others.

Some of these are a more or less dated and actively maintained, and also more or less easy to get your hands dirty with. So you may want to survey them and experiment a bit. I'd recommend a look at JDepend, as it's a relatively small code base and it once was (and still is by some) a rather famous and well received tool.

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IDE Support

Most of these tools can be integrated into an IDE (whether or not that's something you have in mind, I don't know) like Eclipse. PMD, CheckStyle and FindBugs for instance all come with an Eclipse plugin, and so does Sonar as well.

Source Code vs Bytecode Analyzers

Finally, be aware that some tools perform an analysis on source code (e.g. CheckStyle) while others do it on bytecode (e.g. FindBugs). You may want to look at either one or both of these options.

Commercial / Closed-Source

Also, if your question was just about adding new metrics and not necessarily extending the software programmatically, you could also look at some other tools. For instance, Google's CodePro Analytix is also pretty good and free and comes with IDE plugins, for instance, while not open-sourced.