Detekt: Exception when output is null

[tasomaniac]

It seems that the output is not mandatory in detekt. When you don't have any output defined, it simply skips writing to files and only does console output.

But when it is integrated through our plugin, we just throw IllegalArgumentException with a cryptic message. Instead, maybe we should validate it and require output to be define.

Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: path may not be null or empty string. path='null' at org.gradle.api.internal.file.AbstractBaseDirFileResolver.doResolve(AbstractBaseDirFileResolver.java:65) at org.gradle.api.internal.file.AbstractFileResolver.resolve(AbstractFileResolver.java:85) at org.gradle.api.internal.file.AbstractFileResolver.resolve(AbstractFileResolver.java:67) at org.gradle.api.internal.file.DefaultFileOperations.file(DefaultFileOperations.java:89) at org.gradle.api.internal.project.DefaultProject.file(DefaultProject.java:840) at org.gradle.api.Project$file$3.call(Unknown Source) at com.novoda.staticanalysis.internal.detekt.DetektConfigurator.createCollectViolationsTask(DetektConfigurator.groovy:67) at com.novoda.staticanalysis.internal.detekt.DetektConfigurator.configureToolTask(DetektConfigurator.groovy:61) at com.novoda.staticanalysis.internal.detekt.DetektConfigurator$_execute_closure1.doCall(DetektConfigurator.groovy:50)

[mr-archano]

Good point @tasomaniac. To me this looks like a bug we need to fix.

[tasomaniac]

Yep. This is something we should be better at with all tools.

We have some expectations from the user how to configure the tools. Having an output for detekt is only 1 example. And we should have clear error messages around those expectations.

[mr-archano]

@tasomaniac is this issue supposed to track also the improvements for the other tools?

[tasomaniac]

Fixed by #90

[tasomaniac]

@mr-archano I just mentioned that but I cannot recall at the moment similar problems with other tools.