[JAVA] Rule Exclude is not working in PMD 6.17.0 and Gradle 5.6

[sudharmohan]

Affects PMD Version: 6.17.0

Rule: ref="category/java/errorprone.xml/DataflowAnomalyAnalysis"

Description:

A lot of false failures for this rule in many classes. It still not working for java 8 streams, for each block. Instead of suppressing at class level, I would like to exclude this rule only in my Gradle PMD task. But I am getting an error when I include the xml file.

Code Sample demonstrating the issue:
Gradle file:

pmd {
    toolVersion = "${pmdVersion}"
    ruleSetFiles = files("${projectDir}/src/test/resources/pmd/pmd-rules.xml")
}

pmd-rules.xml

<rule ref="category/java/errorprone.xml">
    <exclude name="DataflowAnomalyAnalysis"/>
</rule>

Running PMD through: [CLI | Ant | Maven | Gradle | Designer | Other]

./gradlew clean check

> Task :pmdTest FAILED
RuleSet name is missing. Future versions of PMD will require it.

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':pmdTest'.
> java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Unexpected element <exclude> encountered as child of <ruleset> element.

* Try:
Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output. Run with --scan to get full insights.

* Get more help at https://help.gradle.org

[jsotuyod]

@sudharmohan firstly, your ruleset is incorrect. The root element of the XML should be <ruleset> and it must include the XML Schema.

For instance:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ruleset name="Custom Rules"
    xmlns="http://pmd.sourceforge.net/ruleset/2.0.0"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://pmd.sourceforge.net/ruleset/2.0.0 https://pmd.sourceforge.io/ruleset_2_0_0.xsd">

    <rule ref="category/java/errorprone.xml">
        <exclude name="DataflowAnomalyAnalysis"/>
    </rule>
</ruleset>

Please, refer to the documentation on writing your own ruleset:

https://pmd.github.io/pmd-6.17.0/pmd_userdocs_making_rulesets.html

Also of note, Gradle includes a bunch of rules by default that you should manually clear. You can refer to this Stackoverflow question for details: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53695965/not-able-to-exclude-some-rules-from-pmd/53696963#53696963

Let me know if you need further assistance

[sudharmohan]

Thanks, @jsotuyod. Solution provided is working. I was confused with the error thrown on "exclude".