I'm trying to configure my Maven project to use google java check style with the following configuration:
google_checks.xml: https://github.com/checkstyle/checkstyle/blob/master/src/main/resources/google_checks.xml
pom.xml
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-checkstyle-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.17</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>checkstyle</id>
<phase>validate</phase>
<goals>
<goal>check</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
<configuration>
<configLocation>google_checks.xml</configLocation>
<encoding>UTF-8</encoding>
<consoleOutput>true</consoleOutput>
<failsOnError>true</failsOnError>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
<reporting>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-jxr-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.5</version>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-checkstyle-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.17</version>
<configuration>
<configLocation>google_checks.xml</configLocation>
<failOnViolation>false</failOnViolation>
<enableFilesSummary>false</enableFilesSummary>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</reporting>
It seems to run mvn checkstyle:check
fine at first. But after a few runs I start getting the following error:
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-checkstyle-plugin:2.17:check
(default-cli) on project PROJECT: Failed during checkstyle configuration: cannot initialize
module TreeWalker - Token "METHOD_REF" was not found in Acceptable tokens list in check
com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks.whitespace.SeparatorWrapCheck -> [Help 1]
What does that mean? Why does it only happen some times and how do I get rid of it?
Best Answer
You are trying to use a newer configuration with an old version of Checkstyle.
The configuration at https://github.com/checkstyle/checkstyle/blob/master/src/main/resources/google_checks.xml is in
master
which is dependent on the snapshot version of checkstyle.If you are using google configuration without any modifications, you need to use the one that comes embedded in checkstyle. See https://stackoverflow.com/a/35486365/1016482
Otherwise you can integrate a newer version of checkstyle to work with maven. See https://stackoverflow.com/a/27359107/1016482