Skip to content

SpotBugs

Java | Home | Release Notes | Plugin

Info

SpotBugs is a successor project to deprecated FindBugs project. Migration guide. If you were using custom findbugs config before then rename its folder to spotbugs.

Warning

In contrast to other plugins, spotbugs plugin is not bundled with gradle, but quality plugin will bring it as a dependency (v 4.7.1) and activate automatically.
If you will activate newer spotbugs plugin manually behaviour may change.

By default, plugin activates if java sources available (src/main/java).

SpotBugs configuration differ from other tools (checkstyle, pmd): instead of exact rules configuration it uses efforts level. Deeper level could reveal more bugs, but with higher mistake possibility. Default settings (max effort and medium level) are perfect for most cases. Some checks were disabled in the default filter file

Note

Special xsl file used for manual html report generation. Spotbugs plugin can generate both xml and html reports, but this ability is not used (for more stable and legacy-compatible behaviour).

Output

2 (0 / 2 / 0) SpotBugs violations were found in 2 files

[Performance | URF_UNREAD_FIELD] sample.(Sample.java:8) [priority 2 / rank 14]
    >> Unread field: sample.Sample.sample
  This field is never read. Consider removing it from the class.

...

Counts in braces show priorities (p1/p2/p3).

Note

There is no link to spotbugs site (like other tools), because report already contains everything from there.

Tip

Both priority and rank are shown for violations: [priority 2 / rank 14]. Priority relates to spotbugsLevel setting and rank to spotbugsMaxRank.

Config

Tool config options with defaults:

quality {
    spotbugsVersion = '4.2.3'
    spotbugs = true // false to disable automatic plugin activation
    spotbugsEffort = 'max'  // min, less, more or max
    spotbugsLevel = 'medium' // low, medium, high
    spotbugsMaxRank = 20 // 1-4 scariest, 5-9 scary, 10-14 troubling, 15-20 of concern  
    spotbugsMaxHeapSize = '1g'
}

Attention

Gradle 5 reduced default memory settings and so default memory for spotbugs task become 512mb (instead of 1/4 of physical memory as it was before). To reduce the impact (as spotbugs task is memory-consuming), quality plugin sets now default memory to 1g. If your project requires more memory for spotbugs, increase it with spotbugsMaxHeapSize option: spotbugsMaxHeapSize='2g'

Note that quality pligin setting is applied only if sotbugs task was not configured manually, for example, with spotbugsMain.maxHeapSize = '2g'.

Suppress

To suppress violations you can use filter file. In this case you need to override default filter file.

Or you can use annotations. SpotBugs use custom annotations and so you need to add com.github.spotbugs:spotbugs-annotations:3.1.2 dependency (with provided scope if possible) and use:

@SuppressFBWarnings("URF_UNREAD_FIELD")

Abstract

Spotbugs can't use default @SuppressWarnings annotation because it's a source annotation and not available in bytecode.

Excludes

Spotbugs is the only quality tool which works on classes rather than on sources. By default, spotbugs task configured with all compiles classes which may include auto-generated sources too (more than just a source set).

Generic exclusions mechanism configures source exclusions and, in order to properly apply these exclusions to spotbugs, quality plugin generates extended exclusions (xml) file. So spotbugs should (seem to) work the same as other plugins.

Note

Apt-generated sources excluded automatically (if you use gradle's annotationProcessor configuration).

Tip

If you need to customize default exclusions file, just put custom file in the configs directory and plugin will extend it with additional excludes if required.

But do not set custom excludes file directly (with spotbugs.excludeFilter)!

Manual exclusion

If, for some reason, exclusions, configured in quality extension not applied (for example, due to implementation bug), you can always put exclusions directly into exclusions filter file (tip above) or filter compiled classes:

afterEvaluate {
    tasks.withType(com.github.spotbugs.snom.SpotBugsTask).configureEach {
        classes = classes.filter { 
            !it.path.contains('com/mycompany/serialize/protobuf/gen/') 
        }
    }
}

Pay attention that this trick filters compiled files (.class), not sources! Whatever custom filtering logic could be used.

Plugins

You may add additional spotbugs checks by declaring spotbugs plugins.

Warning

As, by default, spotbugs plugin applied automatically after configuration read, spotbugsPlugins configuration can't be used directly

You can register plugins using quality extension shortcut:

quality {
    spotbugsPlugin 'com.h3xstream.findsecbugs:findsecbugs-plugin:1.10.0'
    spotbugsPlugin 'com.mebigfatguy.fb-contrib:fb-contrib:7.4.7'        
}

Note

Rules from plugins would be identified in console output:

[fb-contrib project | Correctness | FCBL_FIELD_COULD_BE_LOCAL] sample.(Sample.java:11)  [priority 2 / rank 7]
    >> Class sample.Sample defines fields that are used only as locals
  This class defines fields that are used in a locals only fashion,
  specifically private fields or protected fields in final classes that are accessed
  first in each method with a store vs. a load. This field could be replaced by one
  or more local variables.

Alternatively, you can use afterEvaluate to register directly in spotbugsPlugins configuration:

afterEvaluate {
    dependencies {
        spotbugsPlugins 'com.mebigfatguy.fb-contrib:fb-contrib:7.4.7'
    }
}

Available plugins

Find Security Bugs (site)

quality {
    spotbugsPlugin 'com.h3xstream.findsecbugs:findsecbugs-plugin:1.10.0'
}

fb-contrib: A FindBugs auxiliary detector plugin (site)

qualtiy {
    spotbugsPlugin 'com.mebigfatguy.fb-contrib:fb-contrib:7.4.7'
}

Annotations

Use spotbugs-annotations to guide spotbugs nullability checks (@NonNull and @Nullable). Add com.github.spotbugs:spotbugs-annotations:3.1.2 dependency (with provided scope if possible).

Warning

Before, annotations from Jsr-305 were used (com.google.code.findbugs:jsr305), but now it is dead. Remove jsr-305 jar if it were used and use undeprecated @edu.umd.cs.findbugs.annotations.NonNull and @edu.umd.cs.findbugs.annotations.Nullable

Pay attention becuase libraries still bring-in jsr-305 jar (e.g. guava does): do not use javax.annotation.Nullable because it may lead to split package problem on java9 and above (not always)

Another alternative is chaker framework annotations: org.checkerframework:checker-qual:3.0.0. Guava already switched to use them, so if you use it you may already have these annotations.

Using checker framework annotations should be preferable because it's on the track to community acceptance as default jsr-305 replacement. Besides, it's the only advanced java types system extension and validation tool.

Hint

Even if you will use other annotations, people using checker framework with your library would still benefit from your annotations because checker framework understands almost all of them.

Summary:

  • If checker framework available (org.checkerframework:checker-qual) use it: org.checkerframework.checker.nullness.qual.Nullable
  • Otherwise, use spotbugs-annotations (com.github.spotbugs:spotbugs-annotations): edu.umd.cs.findbugs.annotations.Nullable
  • Avoid using jsr-305 directly (com.google.code.findbugs:jsr305): javax.annotation.Nullable

Example

Here is an example, which will force you to use nullability annotations.

When you use guava functions or predicates you may receive this:

[NP_PARAMETER_MUST_BE_NONNULL_BUT_MARKED_AS_NULLABLE] input must be nonnull but is marked as nullable

The reason for this is that guava use @Nullable annotation, which is @Inherited, so even if you not set annotation on your own function or predicate it will still be visible.

The simplest workaround is to set @NonNull annotation on your function or predicate:

public boolean apply(@NonNull final Object input) {

Hint

NP_METHOD_PARAMETER_TIGHTENS_ANNOTATION check was disabled because it does not allow this workaround to work

Spotbugs plugin specifics

Spotbugs plugin 4 is a plugin re-write. Now it does not follow other gradle quality plugin conventions. The main difference is: there is no target source sets configuration anymore, so by default, all spotbugs tasks will be executed with check.

To recover old spotbugs plugin behaviour (and unify it with other plugins) quality plugin activates customized spotbugs plugin with legacy behaviour (the difference is only in what tasks attached to check).

Warning

If you will activate spotbugs plugin manually 

plugins {
    id 'com.github.spotbugs' version '4.1.0'
}
Then default spotbugs plugin will be used and so check will call all spotbugs tasks (spotbugsMain, spotbugsTest).

Still, everything else will work as before: the difference is only in check task dependencies.

If you would like to update bundled spotbugs plugin version use:

plugins {
    id 'com.github.spotbugs' version '4.1.0' apply false
}

If you want to apply plugin manually to activtate it earlier and be able to apply configurations without afterEvaluate block:

apply plugin: ru.vyarus.gradle.plugin.quality.spotbugs.CustomSpotBugsPlugin

Spotbugs plugin issues

New spotbugs plugin does not support build cache, so spotbugs tasks will always run, even with enabled build cache.

Spotbugs plugin always throws an exception when violations found, so even in non strict mode (quality.strict = false) you will see an exception in logs when violations found (build will not be failed). Not critical, just confusing.

Problems resolution

Most problems appear with spotbugs configuration. Plugin by default configures only default dependencies for it, so if you modify this configuration you will have to specify dependencies explicitly:

afterEvaluate {
    dependencies {
        spotbugs "com.github.spotbugs:spotbugs:${quality.spotbugsVersion}"
    }
}

Important

Gradle will not show you dependencies tree for spotbugs configuration (because it doesn't show default dependencies) so to be able to see conflicts, configure it manually (as shown above). After that you can investigate with: 

gradlew dependencies --configuration spotbugs
or (for exact dependency tracking) 
gradlew dependencyInsight --configuration spotbugs --dependency asm

Asm

If you have problems executing spotbugs tasks like

Execution failed for task ':spotbugsMain'.
> Failed to run Gradle SpotBugs Worker
   > org/objectweb/asm/RecordComponentVisitor

(NoClassDefFoundException in stacktrace)

Then it is possible that you have incorrect asm:

gradlew dependencyInsight --configuration spotbugs --dependency org.ow2.asm:asm

org.ow2.asm:asm:7.2 (selected by rule)
...
org.ow2.asm:asm:7.3.1 -> 7.2

This may be caused by incorrect BOM usage. For example, spring dependency-management plugin configured like this:

dependencyManagement {
    imports {
        mavenBom "com.google.inject:guice-bom:4.2.3"
    }        
}

would apply to ALL configurations, including "spotbugs". In this example, guice bom will force asm 7.2 which will lead to fail.

To fix this apply BOM only to some configurations:

dependencyManagement {
    configurations(implementation, testImplementation, provided) {
        imports {
            mavenBom "com.google.inject:guice-bom:4.2.3"
        }        
    }
}

Warning

But, in this case, generated pom will lack "dependencyManagement" section (as it use only globally applied BOMs), so if resulted pom is important for you, then simply force correct asm version for spotbugs: 

afterEvaluate {
    dependencies {
        spotbugs "com.github.spotbugs:spotbugs:${quality.spotbugsVersion}"
        spotbugs "org.ow2.asm:asm:9.0"
    }  
}

Build dashboard plugin

If you use build-dashboard plugin, you may face an error:

Execution failed for task ':buildDashboard'.
> Could not create task ':spotbugsTest'.
   > Cannot change dependencies of dependency configuration ':spotbugs' after it has been resolved.

This is due to a bug in build-dashboard plugin, forcing initialization of all project tasks. Spotbugs create lazy tasks for all source sets and each task configures defaults for spotbugs configuration. So when build-dashboard force initialization of not used tasks, they can't apply configurations.

To workaround this simply initialize all not used spotbugs tasks manually:

afterEvaluate {
    tasks.findByName('spotbugsTest')
}

afterEvaluate required because spotbugs plugin applied after configuration and findByName forces task initialization (for lazy tasks).