Features

The plugin enables analysis of web files within Sonar. Currently JSP and JSF are supported. Some initial support is provided for Ruby templating (erb files). 

The following metrics are supported:

• sizing (files, lines of code)
• rules compliancy
• complexity
• duplication
• comments

The plugin leverages Sonar to provide the following functionalities:

• Source code view of Web files with their metrics
• Configuration of custom Rule sets

Usage & Installation

Installation

1. Copy the jar into /extensions/plugins/ directory
2. Restart Sonar Web server

Analysis
Create a maven pom for your project. Set the following properties:

• sonar.language: web.
• dynamicAnalysis: false
• sourceDirectory: [folder of the web files]

Sample pom file:

Quick analysis
For an existing maven project, you might start an analysis by the following command:

Please note you can run sonar analysis for an artefact in only one language.

Analysis

Rules

The ruleset is inspired on the following standards and guidelines:

• Code Conventions for the JavaServer Pages Technology
• XHTML 1.0

A complete explanation of the available checks is given here .

Complexity
Complexity of the web page is measured by counting the decision tags (such as if and forEach) and boolean operators in expressions ("&&" and "||"), plus one for the body of the document. It is a measure of the minimum number possible paths to render the page.

The decision tags and the operators are configurable. For details see rules library

Duplication
Duplication is counted by comparing nodes. Duplication is reported if more than a minimum amount of nodes are replicated (in the same file or another file). The default minimum tokens is set to 5.

Comments
Comments are counted by adding the lines for server side and client side comments.

Configuration

The following properties of the plugin are configurable:

Plugin Architecture

The plugin uses a simple tokenizer to parse the web pages. The tokenizer is based on the sonar-channel library. The output of the tokenizer is analyzed by a set of analyzers and checks. Expressions written in the Unified Expression Language (EL) are validated with JBoss EL.

No further external tools or maven plugins are being used for analyzing the code.

Alpha Status and Testing

The plugin has alpha status: testing should focus on functionality and usability. Does the plugin deliver the required metrics? What is the quality of the rules library?

The plugin has been tested on JSP files from Alfresco (http://svn.alfresco.com/repos/alfresco-open-mirror/alfresco/HEAD/root/projects/web-client) and XHTML files from Nuxeo.

E.g. a quick test would be to check code from Alfresco, create a pom file and run the analysis.

Roadmap ideas

• Run analysis directly from maven (without sonar)
• More support for WCAG, webrichtlijnen
• Enhanced validation of unified expressions (using JSFUnit?)
• Dependency analysis