[Codenarc-user] Advice on Violation Messages

[Hamlet D'A. <ham...@gm...>]

Hi everyone,

I have a few requests to make of anyone implementing a CodeNarc rule:

1) Every violation should have a text message. This makes a big
difference when reading a CodeNarc report.
2) Violation messages should explain what specifically is wrong. For
instance, try to include the variable name/field name/class name in
the message so the reader can know more what went wrong. Use
ASTNode.getText() to get the text for bits of AST to print out.
3) *Always* print the class name in the message. This makes it easy to
add this class to the "classToIgnore" standard property.
4) Write your own ASTNode.getText() if the default value is not
correct, missing, or just bad. For instance,
ClosureExpression.getText() returns the String "<not supported for
ClosureExpression>". The best way to fix this is by adding this code
to your rule:
    ClosureExpression.metaClass.getText = { return ' { -> ...} '  }
This is important because I can then come back later and merge your
code into Groovy-core, making the language just a little better.

That is all. Thank you.

-- 
Hamlet D'Arcy
ham...@gm...