IllegalClassReference.md

Pattern: Illegal class reference

Issue: -

Description

Checks for reference to any of the classes configured in classNames.

Property	Description	Default Value
classNames	Specifies the comma-separated list of (fully-qualified) class names. The class name(s) may optionally include wildcard characters ('*' or '?'). Note that the '*' wildcard matches any sequence of zero or more characters in the class/package name, e.g. 'a.*.SomeClass' matches a.b.SomeClass as well as a.b.c.d.SomeClass. If classNames is null or empty, do nothing.	null

This rule can be useful for governance and enforcement of architectural layering. For instance, making sure that view or model classes, for instance, do not contain references to DAO classes (e.g., *Dao).

Here is an example configuration of this rule used to ensure that DAO classes are not referenced from within model classes:

ruleset {
    description "Example CodeNarc Ruleset"

    // ...

    IllegalClassReference {
        name = 'DoNotReferenceDaoFromModelClasses'
        priority = 2
        classNames = '*Dao'
        applyToClassNames = 'com.example.model.*'
        description = 'Do not reference DAOs from model classes.'
    }
}

A RuleSet can contain any number of instances of this rule, but each should be configured with a unique rule name and classNames, and (optionally) customized violationMessage and priority.

Further Reading

• CodeNarc - IllegalClassReference