A set of plugins that can be applied to any Java project to provide a consistent “Spring” style. The set currently consists of:
-
A source formatter that applies wrapping and whitespace conventions
-
A checkstyle plugin that enforces consistency across a codebase
Since the aim of this project is to provide consistency, each plugin is not generally configurable. You need to change your code to match the required conventions. You can’t configure the plugin conventions to match your style!
For source formatting, add the spring-javaformat-maven-plugin
to your build
plugins as follows:
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>io.spring.javaformat</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-javaformat-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>0.0.6</version>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
And the io.spring.javaformat
plugin group in ~/.m2/settings.xml
as follows:
<pluginGroups>
<pluginGroup>io.spring.javaformat</pluginGroup>
</pluginGroups>
You can now run ./mvnw spring-javaformat:apply
to reformat code.
If you want to enforce that all code matches the required style, add the following:
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>io.spring.javaformat</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-javaformat-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>0.0.6</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>validate</phase>
<inherited>true</inherited>
<goals>
<goal>validate</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
To enforce checksyle conventions add the checkstyle plugin and include a dependency on spring-javaformat-checkstyle
:
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-checkstyle-plugin</artifactId>
<version>3.0.0</version>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.puppycrawl.tools</groupId>
<artifactId>checkstyle</artifactId>
<version>8.11</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>io.spring.javaformat</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-javaformat-checkstyle</artifactId>
<version>0.0.6</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>checkstyle-validation</id>
<phase>validate</phase>
<inherited>true</inherited>
<configuration>
<configLocation>io/spring/javaformat/checkstyle/checkstyle.xml</configLocation>
<includeTestSourceDirectory>true</includeTestSourceDirectory>
</configuration>
<goals>
<goal>check</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
For source formatting, add the spring-javaformat-gradle-plugin
to your build
plugins as follows:
buildscript {
repositories {
mavenCentral()
}
dependencies {
classpath("io.spring.javaformat:spring-javaformat-gradle-plugin:0.0.6")
}
}
apply plugin: 'io.spring.javaformat'
The plugin adds format
and checkFormat
tasks to your project.
The checkFormat
task is automatically applied when running the standard Gradle check
task.
To enforce checksyle conventions add the checkstyle plugin and include a dependency on spring-javaformat-checkstyle
:
apply plugin: 'checkstyle'
checkstyle {
toolVersion = "8.11"
}
dependencies {
checkstyle("io.spring.javaformat:spring-javaformat-checkstyle:0.0.6")
}
Your src/checkstyle/checkstyle.xml
file should look then like this:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE module PUBLIC "-//Puppy Crawl//DTD Check Configuration 1.3//EN" "http://www.puppycrawl.com/dtds/configuration_1_3.dtd">
<module name="com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.Checker">
<module name="io.spring.javaformat.checkstyle.SpringChecks" />
</module>
The Eclipse plugin provides a custom formatter implementation and automatically applies project specific settings. The plugin is automatically activated whenever the Maven or Gradle plugins are discovered in a project build script.
If you need to customize the project specific settings that the plugin applies you should add a .eclipse
folder in the root of your project.
All .prefs
files from this folder will be copied to the project .settings
folders.
Usually you’ll provide your own org.eclipse.jdt.core.prefs
and org.eclipse.jdt.ui.prefs
files.
You can also add a .eclipse/eclipse.properties
file to customize the following items:
copyright-year= # The copyright year to use in new files
To install the plugin use the io.spring.javaformat.eclipse.site
zip file.
You can download the latest version from repo.spring.io or use the update site.
The IntelliJ plugin provides custom formatter support for IDEA.
The plugin is automatically activated whenever the Maven or Gradle plugins are discovered in a project build script.
A Spring Java Format icon () will also be displayed in the status bar to indicate the formatter is active.
You can use the standard
code
→ reformat code
action to format the code.
To install the plugin use the spring-javaformat-intellij-plugin
jar file.
You can download the latest version from repo.spring.io.
Most of the coding conventions and style comes from the Spring Framework and Spring Boot projects. Spring Framework manually formats code, where as Spring Boot uses automatic formatting.
Formatting and Checkstyle alone are not enough to produce truly consistent code. Here are some tips that we’ve found useful when developing Spring Boot.
The source formatter intentionally uses a low character count of 90 chars for wrapping. If you’re used to longer lines, this can take some getting used to. Specifically, if you have many nesting levels things can start to look quite bad.
Generally, if you see code bunched up to the right of your screen you should take that as a signal to use the “extract method” refactor. Extracting small private methods will improve formatting and it helps when reading the code and debugging.
Keeping whitespace lines out method bodies can help make the code easier to scan. If blank lines are only included between methods it becomes easier to see the overall structure of the class. If you find you need whitespace inside your method, consider if extracting a private method might give a better result.
Try to add javadoc for each public method and constant. Private methods shouldn’t generally need javadoc, unless it provides a natural place to document unusual behavior.
The checkstyle rules will enforce that all public classes have javadoc.
They will also ensure that @author
tags are well formed.
Private members should be final
whenever possible.
Local variable and parameters should generally not be explicitly declared as final since it adds so much noise.
Methods don’t need to be organized by scope.
There’s no need to group all private
, protected
and public
methods together.
Instead try to make your code easy to read when scanning the file from top to bottom.
In other words, try to have methods only reference method further down in the file.
Keep private methods as close to the thing that calls them as possible.
It’s also recommend that you try to keep consistent ordering with fields and constructor parameters. For example:
class Name {
private final String first;
private final String last;
public Name(String first, String last) {
this.first = first;
this.last = last;
}
}