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https://github.com/YorickPeterse/ruby-lint


https://github.com/YorickPeterse/ruby-lint

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README 

        
# ruby-lint



ruby-lint is a static code analysis tool for Ruby. It is inspired by tools such

as jshint, flake8 and similar tools. ruby-lint primarily focuses on logic

related errors such as the use of non existing variables instead of focusing on

semantics (e.g. the amount of characters per line).



The features of ruby-lint include but are not limited to the detection of

unused variables, the use of undefined methods and method calls with invalid

argument amounts and more. More in-depth analysis will be added over time.



The aim of ruby-lint is to provide analysis that is as accurate as possible.

However, due to the dynamic nature of Ruby and the sheer amount of meta-magic

in third-party code there will at times be false positives. Analysis can be

improved by documenting your code using [YARD][yard], in particular the

`@param` and `@return` tags are used by ruby-lint to obtain extra information

when processing methods.



## Requirements



* a Ruby implementation running 1.9 or newer

* a Unix based Operating System



The following Ruby implementations/versions are officially supported:



* MRI 1.9.3, 2.0 or 2.1

* Rubinius 2.0 and newer

* Jruby 1.7 and newer



Ruby implementations running a 1.8 based version of Ruby are not supported.



## Installation



The easiest way to install ruby-lint is to install it from RubyGems:



    gem install ruby-lint



If you prefer to install (and build) ruby-lint from the source code you can do

so as following:



    git clone git://github.com/YorickPeterse/ruby-lint.git

    cd ruby-lint

    bundle install # you can also install the dependencies manually

    rake build



This builds a new version of the Gem and saves it in the pkg/ directory.



## Usage



Using ruby-lint from the CLI is very easy. To analyze a set of files

you run the following:



    ruby-lint file1.rb file2.rb



For more information specify either the `-h` or `--help` option.



## Example



Given the following code:



    class Person

      def initialize(name)

        # oops, not setting @name

      end



      def greet

        return "Hello, #{@name}"

      end

    end



    user     = Person.new('Alice')

    greeting = user.greet



    user.greet(:foo)



Analysing this file using ruby-lint (with the default settings) would result in

the following output:



    test.rb: error: line 7, column 22: undefined instance variable @name

    test.rb: warning: line 12, column 1: unused local variable greeting

    test.rb: error: line 14, column 1: wrong number of arguments for 'greet' (expected 0 but got 1)



## ruby-lint versus RuboCop



A question commonly asked is what purpose ruby-lint serves compared to other

tools such as [RuboCop][rubocop]. After all, upon first sight the two tools

look pretty similar.



The big difference between ruby-lint and RuboCop is that ruby-lint focuses

primarily on technical problems such as the use of undefined methods/variables,

unused variables/method arguments and more. RuboCop on the other hand focuses

mostly on style related issues based on a community driven Ruby style guide.

This means that it will for example warn you about methods written using

camelCase and method bodies that are considered to be too long.



Personally I have little interest in adding style related analysis as RuboCop

already does that and in my opinion does a far better job at it. I also simply

think it's too boring to write analysis like this. Having said that, ruby-lint

has some basic style related analysis (e.g. the use of `BEGIN`) but this mostly

serves as a simple example on how to write analysis code.



In the end it depends on what your needs are. If you have a team that's having

trouble following a consistent coding style then RuboCop is probably the right

tool for the job. On the other hand, if you're trying to debug a nasty bug then

ruby-lint will most likely be more useful.



## Security



As a basic form of security ruby-lint provides a set of SHA512 checksums for

every Gem release. These checksums can be found in the `checksum/` directory.

Although these checksums do not prevent malicious users from tampering with a

built Gem they can be used for basic integrity verification purposes.



The checksum of a file can be checked using the `sha512sum` command. For

example:



    $ sha512sum pkg/ruby-lint-0.9.1.gem

    10a51f27c455e5743fff7fefe29512cff20116b805bec148e09d4bade1727e3beab7f7f9ee97b020d290773edcb7bd1685858ccad0bbd1a35cc0282c00c760c6  pkg/ruby-lint-0.9.1.gem



In the past Gems were also signed using PGP, this is no longer the case.



## Documentation



* {file:CONTRIBUTING Contributing}

* {file:architecture Architecture}

* {file:code\_analysis Code Analysis}

* {file:configuration Configuration}

* {file:definitions Definitions}



## License



All source code in this repository is subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public

License, version 2.0 unless stated otherwise. A copy of this license can be

found the file "LICENSE" or at .



[rubocop]: https://github.com/bbatsov/rubocop

[yard]: http://yardoc.org/