The eclipse-pmd plug-in integrates the well-known source code analyzer PMD into the Eclipse IDE.

Everytime you save your work, eclipse-pmd scans your source code and looks for potential problems like possible bugs and suboptimal, duplicate, dead or overly complicated code.

Where possible, eclipse-pmd offers quick fixes that automatically fix the problems. These quick fixes can be used to fix a single problem or all occurrences in your entire code base.

You need Eclipse 2023-06 or later and Java 17 or later to run eclipse-pmd. Please follow the instructions on how to get started with eclipse-pmd on the website.

Building eclipse-pmd is fairly easy. Please note, however, that building eclipse-pmd is not required if you are only interested in using it, since there is a pre-built version available in the Eclipse Marketplace.

You need the following tools:

• JDK 17
• Maven 3.9
• Git

The first thing you need to do is to check out the source code.

git clone https://github.com/eclipse-pmd/eclipse-pmd.git
cd eclipse-pmd

Once you have the source code you can build it with Maven.

cd ch.acanda.eclipse.pmd
mvn clean verify

This will compile, test and build a local repository for eclipse-pmd. If the build was successful you will find the repository in ch.acanda.eclipse.pmd.repository/target/repository.

Once you have built the repository you can install eclipse-pmd by adding a new repository to Eclipse:

• from within Eclipse select Help > Install New Software...
• click the button Add... of the Install dialog
• click the button Local... of the Add Repository dialog
• select the folder ch.acanda.eclipse.pmd.repository/target/repository
• click the button OK of the Add Repository dialog
• select Eclipse PMD Plug-in and proceed with the installation

From now on you can simply update Eclipse with Help > Check for Updates after you rebuilt eclipse-pmd.

Building eclipse-pmd with mvn clean verify compiles and tests it against the oldest supported release of Eclipse which is Eclipse 2023-06. To ensure eclipse-pmd also works with newer releases, the Eclipse release can be set with the parameter eclipse-release.

Compile and test against Eclipse 2023-06: mvn clean verify -Declipse-release=2023-06
Compile and test against Eclipse 2023-09: mvn clean verify -Declipse-release=2023-09
Compile and test against Eclipse 2023-12: mvn clean verify -Declipse-release=2023-12
Compile and test against Eclipse 2024-03: mvn clean verify -Declipse-release=2024-03

Regardless of the chosen release, the built plug-in will always be the same as the one built without the parameter. So there isn't any advantage in building the plug-in yourself if you are using a newer Eclipse release.