Customize & Extend PHP Codesniffer ruleset for Sonar PHP Profile

Customize & Extend PHP Codesniffer ruleset for Sonar PHP Profile

Sonar the tool that we are using for our code review. For PHP sonar has plugin which uses a PHP Codesniffer PEAR package to sniff code for violations. Almost all of them are predefined. If there is a requirement to add few more rules to the default ruleset, there is a way to do it with PHP_Codesniffer pear package.

How to customize default ruleset of PHP_Codesniffer ruleset for Sonar profile.

Following are the steps when one needs to change the predefined value for a rule and make it configuratioble settings via sonar profile page user interface.

1. Violation in your project,

BREAK statement must be indented 4 spaces from SWITCH keyword. Here the statement is indented 2 space as per it's a code done for Drupal, but the rules show that we need 4 space which avoid the drupal standards .

Here it is SwitchDeclarationBreakIndent is the rule name which is having that specific codeSniffer for checking the indentation.

• goto configuration and get the rule key.

It's Squiz.ControlStructures.SwitchDeclaration.BreakIndent

Here there is no modification for the indentation is available. So we need to Customize it.

• now goto your codesniffer installed package and follow following path
  • CodeSniffer (/usr/share/php/PHP/CodeSniffer is mine location)
  • in that /Standards have all the standard coding rules
  • you will get Squiz/Sniffers/ControlStructures representing the first 2 part of the key Squiz.ControlStructures
  • SwitchDeclaration.BreakIndent indicates the sniffer file name it's SwitchDeclarationSniff.php

2. Making Require Changes in It.

• Look for

$caseAlignment = ($switch['column'] + 4); - line no 77

here the value 4 is given static for maknig any keyword aligned 4 spaced from switch .

It's applied to both case and break.

So we create a new one for us.

• First define a public variable for class
  • public $breakalign = 4;
• make a local variable for local scope changes.
  • $localbreakalign = ($switch['column'] + $this->breakalign);
• And apply the new variable in the portion of code to make related changes.
  • if ($tokens[$nextBreak]['column'] !== $localbreakalign) {

$error = 'BREAK statement must be indented '.$this->breakalign.' spaces from SWITCH keyword';

$phpcsFile->addError($error, $nextBreak, 'BreakIndent');

}

• make changes as u required.

• Now why we have made it . Is simply we need a public variable which we can modify from a ruleset.xml file which is the next part.

3. Making a changes in ruleset.xml

• ruleset.xml is where all we have to define a property of a given rule. Follow this template.
  • <rule ref="Squiz.ControlStructures.SwitchDeclaration.BreakIndent">

<properties>

<property name="breakalign" value="4"/>

</properties>

</rule>

• so it's for changes we made in step 2. for more
• you can find more templates @ http://pear.php.net/manual/en/package.php.php-codesniffer.annotated-ruleset.php
• So we have make the propertie breakalign avaiable for modification by doing it.

4. Making a changes in sonar rule configuration for Extending the rule.

• Just create a rules.xml at $SONAR_HOME/extensions/rules/php_codesniffer_rules/

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

<rules>

<rule key="Squiz.ControlStructures.SwitchDeclaration.BreakIndent" priority="MAJOR">

<category name="Maintainability"/>

<name>SwitchDeclarationBreakIndent</name>

<configKey>rulesets/SwitchDeclaration</configKey>

<description><![CDATA[BREAK statement must be indented 4 spaces from SWITCH keyword]]></description>

<param>

<key>breakalign</key>

<description>The number of spaces code should be indented.</description>

<defaultValue>4</defaultValue>

</param>

</rule>

</rules>

• use this code here we have added a key breakalign for some making it changable from sonar panel.

5. Restart your Sonar.
6. Goto the configuration

7. And now you can make a change to the rule with your own standards.