Pick Up the Right Reporter¶
OCLint currently supports generating multiple types of reports based on the demands of different use cases. The generation for each report type is handled by a reporter. All reporters are collected in oclint-reporters module.
Report Options¶
In order to use other reporter, add -report-type <report name> to oclint command. OCLint uses plain text reporter by default, so usually -report-type text flag is not necessary unless other report type has been specified in configuration file and needs to be overridden.
Some reports are better to be viewed in places other than the console. For example, web browser is a good place for reading HTML reports, and PMD report has a better visual rendering effect in continuous integration systems like Jenkins. In these cases, -o <path> option can help redirect the report to a file instead of console.
By combining both options, for example, outputting the result in HTML format to oclint_result.html file can be achieved by
oclint -report-type html -o oclint_result.html <sources> -- <compiler flags>
Report Types¶
The following reporters are available. The names in the parentheses are the values used for report-type option.
Plain Text Report (text)¶
Plain text report is designed for directly outputting results to console.
Report starts with the summary of the inspection, it consists of number of total files, number of files with violations, and number of violations for three different priorities.
The output of each violation is formatted similar to compiler errors. Each line in the report indicates a violation. It starts with the file name, line, and column of the source code that the violation occurs. The name of the violated rule is printed after, followed by the priority of the rule. OCLint also outputs descriptions if current violation has any.
HTML Report (html)¶
HTML reporter is browser friendly with better readability. The entire report follows the same order as the text report, but with a nicer structure of sections, paragraphs, and annotations. Violations are highlighted with different colors according to the priority.
PMD Reporter (pmd)¶
Since PMD report is supported by many existing continuous integration (CI) for Java developers, PMD reporter outputs the XML report that follows the PMD report format. So that these CI systems can pick up the output and render better graphic results.
Xcode Reporter (xcode)¶
Xcode reporter can be used inside Xcode IDE.
See also
Read this document for using OCLint in Xcode.
Details of using OCLint
Configuration File¶
When a type of reporter is selected by the entire team, it’s recommended to save it into .oclint file. For example, producing HTML report can be configured as:
report-type: html
output: oclint.html
See also
- Write Own Reporters
- Documentation of writing own reporters to extend OCLint with more capabilities.