PMD Static Code Analysis for Apex

1. Why PMD?

Writing Apex code is easy. Writing good Apex code takes discipline. That’s where PMD comes in. It’s a static code analysis tool that helps:

• 🔍 Detect code quality issues early
• 📏 Enforce coding standards & best practices
• 🧹 Reduce technical debt by finding error-prone patterns

2. Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure you’ve got these set up:

• ☕ Java JDK (8 or later)
• 🛠️ PMD (static code analysis tool)
• 📦 Apex PMD Plugin
• 💻 Your Apex classes downloaded locally

3. Installing PMD

Download PMD from the official site, extract it, and configure environment variables.

# Windows example
Variable name: PMD_HOME
Variable value: C:\pmd

# Add to PATH
%PMD_HOME%\bin
          

Verify with:

pmd --version

4. Custom Ruleset

I used a rules.xml file located in /config/rules.xml. It checks:

• Code style & formatting
• Error-prone patterns
• Performance issues
• Apex best practices

5. Running PMD

Run PMD from your terminal inside the project root folder:

pmd check --dir "C:\path\to\classes" --rulesets "C:\path\to\rules.xml" --format csv
          

To generate a CSV report:

pmd check --dir "C:\path\to\classes" --rulesets "C:\path\to\rules.xml" --format csv --report-file pmd-report.csv
          

6. Report Output

The CSV report includes:

• 📄 File name
• 🔢 Line number
• ⚖️ Rule violated
• 📝 Description
• 🔥 Priority/Severity

Example:

"File","Line","Rule","Priority","Description"
"ServiceAppointmentHandler.cls","45","AvoidDmlStatementsInLoops","1","DML inside loops can cause governor limit issues."
          

Priority ranges from 1 (Critical) to 5 (Info). My run generated 1,037 entries across multiple Apex classes in the Gigaclear org!

7. Takeaways

✅ PMD helps write cleaner Apex code.

✅ Custom rulesets enforce Salesforce best practices.

✅ Reports in CSV/XML/HTML make reviewing easy.

Integrating PMD in your workflow means fewer bugs, better performance, and a happier dev team 🚀