Welcome to PMD

PMD scans Java source code and looks for potential problems like:

  • Possible bugs - empty try/catch/finally/switch statements
  • Dead code - unused local variables, parameters and private methods
  • Suboptimal code - wasteful String/StringBuffer usage
  • Overcomplicated expressions - unnecessary if statements, for loops that could be while loops
  • Duplicate code - copied/pasted code means copied/pasted bugs

You can download everything from here, and you can get an overview of all the rules at the rulesets index page.

PMD is integrated with JDeveloper, Eclipse, JEdit, JBuilder, BlueJ, CodeGuide, NetBeans/Sun Java Studio Enterprise/Creator, IntelliJ IDEA, TextPad, Maven, Ant, Gel, JCreator, and Emacs.

Recent releases

  • 2012-05-01 PMD 5.0.0: major version supporting additional languages and new rules (Changelog)

    • Additional languages support (Java, JavaScript, XML, XSL, JSP)
    • Many bug fixes and new rules
    • Internal refactoring which breaks compatibility, but adds generic support for additional languages.
    • Maven coordinates have been changed: net.sourceforge.pmd:pmd
    • For details, see the Changelog.

    Note: PMD 5 is not backwards compatible with PMD 4.x.

  • 2011-11-04 PMD 4.3 (download):

    • Add support for Java 7 grammer - thanks to Dinesh Bolkensteyn and SonarSource ;
    • Add C# support for CPD - thanks to Florian Bauer ;
    • And, as usual, a bunch of bug fixes and a couple new rules (DontCallThreadRun and GuardDebugLogging) (See Changelog).
    Note: default JDK setting for PMD is now Java 7.
  • 2011-09-14 PMD 4.2.6: bug fixes, new rules (Changelog)
  • 2009-02-08 PMD 4.2.5: bug fixes, new rule, new Android ruleset (Changelog)
  • 2008-10-12 PMD 4.2.4: bug fixes (Changelog)
  • 2008-08-31 PMD 4.2.3: yet more bug fixes (Changelog)
  • 2008-05-20 PMD 4.2.2: more bug fixes on the 4.2 branch (Changelog)
  • 2008-04-11 PMD 4.2.1: bug fixes (Changelog)

Future releases

The next development version will be PMD 5.1. We will release other 5.0.x versions with bug fixes if needed.

A snapshot of the web site for the new version is generated daily by our continuous integration server. Early access versions can also be downloaded from there.