Can't import PMD Ruleset in Eclipse

Question

I would like to use the same Ruleset in my IDE (Eclipse) that my Sonar profile.

I got the PMD XML ruleset from the Sonar Permalinks and would like to import it into my PMD Eclipse Plugin but when i try to do it, the "OK" button is desactivated ...

Can someone help me ?

Answer 1

The problem could be that Sonar is exporting your ruleset for v4.x format and your Eclipse plugin expects them in v5.x format.

Try changing your rules from:

<rule ref="rulesets/basic.xml/UnusedNullCheckInEquals">
    <priority>3</priority>
</rule>

to

<rule ref="rulesets/java/basic.xml/UnusedNullCheckInEquals">
    <priority>3</priority>
</rule>

Please note the ref attribute. A simple find and replace all will work out fine for you.

Answer 2

The advice from Ivan Nikolov helped me, but I had to also change one rule from:

<rule ref="rulesets/java/controversial.xml/UnusedModifier">
  <priority>5</priority>
</rule>

to

<rule ref="rulesets/java/unusedcode.xml/UnusedModifier">
  <priority>5</priority>
</rule>

Here is my PMD configuration file from sonar which is working for me with PMD-plugin 4.0.2.:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ruleset xmlns="http://pmd.sourceforge.net/ruleset/2.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         name="pmd-eclipse"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://pmd.sourceforge.net/ruleset/2.0.0 http://pmd.sourceforge.net/ruleset_2_0_0.xsd">
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/basic.xml/UnusedNullCheckInEquals">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/strings.xml/StringInstantiation">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/design.xml/ConstructorCallsOverridableMethod">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/strictexception.xml/AvoidCatchingNPE">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/strictexception.xml/AvoidRethrowingException">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/migrating.xml/ReplaceEnumerationWithIterator">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/optimizations.xml/AvoidArrayLoops">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/unusedcode.xml/UnusedFormalParameter">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/basic.xml/ClassCastExceptionWithToArray">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/strictexception.xml/AvoidThrowingNullPointerException">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/unusedcode.xml/UnusedPrivateField">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/design.xml/CompareObjectsWithEquals">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/strings.xml/UseIndexOfChar">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/basic.xml/BigIntegerInstantiation">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/design.xml/FinalFieldCouldBeStatic">
    <priority>4</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/naming.xml/SuspiciousEqualsMethodName">
    <priority>2</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/design.xml/InstantiationToGetClass">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/naming.xml/SuspiciousHashcodeMethodName">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/coupling.xml/LooseCoupling">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/unusedcode.xml/UnusedLocalVariable">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/strings.xml/UnnecessaryCaseChange">
    <priority>4</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/design.xml/SingularField">
    <priority>4</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/design.xml/CloseResource">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/strictexception.xml/AvoidCatchingThrowable">
    <priority>2</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/basic.xml/CollapsibleIfStatements">
    <priority>4</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/basic.xml/UselessOperationOnImmutable">
    <priority>2</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/clone.xml/CloneMethodMustImplementCloneable">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/basic.xml/UselessOverridingMethod">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/unusedcode.xml/UnusedModifier">
    <priority>5</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/design.xml/PreserveStackTrace">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/optimizations.xml/UseArraysAsList">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/design.xml/EqualsNull">
    <priority>2</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/basic.xml/BrokenNullCheck">
    <priority>2</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/logging-jakarta-commons.xml/UseCorrectExceptionLogging">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/strings.xml/InefficientStringBuffering">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/sunsecure.xml/ArrayIsStoredDirectly">
    <priority>2</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/finalizers.xml/FinalizeOverloaded">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/controversial.xml/DontImportSun">
    <priority>4</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/imports.xml/DontImportJavaLang">
    <priority>4</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/design.xml/MissingStaticMethodInNonInstantiatableClass">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/strings.xml/StringBufferInstantiationWithChar">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/optimizations.xml/UseArrayListInsteadOfVector">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/strings.xml/StringToString">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/design.xml/SimplifyConditional">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/migrating.xml/ReplaceVectorWithList">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/codesize.xml/NcssMethodCount">
    <priority>3</priority>
    <properties>
      <property name="minimum" value="50" />
    </properties>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/logging-java.xml/AvoidPrintStackTrace">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/naming.xml/MethodWithSameNameAsEnclosingClass">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/naming.xml/SuspiciousConstantFieldName">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/codesize.xml/NcssTypeCount">
    <priority>3</priority>
    <properties>
      <property name="minimum" value="800" />
    </properties>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/design.xml/AvoidInstanceofChecksInCatchClause">
    <priority>4</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/migrating.xml/IntegerInstantiation">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/migrating.xml/AvoidAssertAsIdentifier">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/design.xml/UnnecessaryLocalBeforeReturn">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/finalizers.xml/AvoidCallingFinalize">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/basic.xml/BooleanInstantiation">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/basic.xml/UnconditionalIfStatement">
    <priority>2</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/clone.xml/CloneThrowsCloneNotSupportedException">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/migrating.xml/ReplaceHashtableWithMap">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/basic.xml/AvoidDecimalLiteralsInBigDecimalConstructor">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/strictexception.xml/SignatureDeclareThrowsException">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/finalizers.xml/EmptyFinalizer">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/design.xml/IdempotentOperations">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/strictexception.xml/ExceptionAsFlowControl">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/finalizers.xml/FinalizeDoesNotCallSuperFinalize">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/strings.xml/UseStringBufferLength">
    <priority>4</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/migrating.xml/AvoidEnumAsIdentifier">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/logging-java.xml/SystemPrintln">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/strings.xml/UselessStringValueOf">
    <priority>4</priority>
  </rule>
  <rule ref="rulesets/java/strings.xml/AvoidDuplicateLiterals">
    <priority>3</priority>
  </rule>
</ruleset>