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Lints and Hints: What tools are available for checking and correcting the conventions, style and common errors in my language (lint tools), and are there tools that can automatically fix them (hint tools)?

This is a follow-up to a comment posted on Is there a place for automated code reviews?

Would a list of static analysis tools help jumpstart this? – h.j.k. 34 mins ago

Let's list a few tools that people can use to address easy and common issues in their code before they ask their questions, and that can help reviewers gather "easy" points to mention in their CR answers...:

To keep this organized, please post one tool/language per answer; if it's a paid/commercial tool, please mention it. Also please include a link to the website.

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1  
This should also help: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tools_for_static_code_analysis –  JaDogg May 2 at 4:34
    
Related: meta.codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/5283/… –  JaDogg May 3 at 16:36

24 Answers 24

up vote 6 down vote

VBA

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You might want to add that this one is written by you and ducky –  Simon Forsberg♦ May 2 at 11:13
up vote 4 down vote

JavaScript

For Javascript, there's JSLint: JSLint on Wikipedia and also JSHint: JSHint on Wikipedia

Note that all major browsers and other interpreters support the "use strict"; proclamation in code, and will ensure that many common mistakes in code are identified before running the code. See: What does “use strict” do in JavaScript, and what is the reasoning behind it?

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Don't forget jshint either –  Flambino May 1 at 23:08
    
@Flambino - thanks, I added it, but I am also sure there's more. Feel free to edit to improve in whatever way you see fit. –  rolfl May 2 at 2:27
up vote 4 down vote

Python

The standard for Python style and layout is PEP 8: Style Guide for Python Code.

There's an online style checker: pep8online.com

Pylint is a static analyzer.

Prospector is a static analyzer that combines multiple python static analyzers including Pylint.

Sublime text has the SublimeLinter plugin which can lint to both PEP8 and PEP257 automatically and adds warning icons to the gutter

Mypy is a static type checker that is working on implementing PEP 484

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The python IDE pycharm automatically checks for pep-8 compliance and also can suggest a number of conformity changes –  Vogel612 May 2 at 12:13
    
Sublime text has the SublimeLinter plugin which can lint to both PEP8 and PEP257 automatically and adds warning icons to the gutter. –  Christopher Pearson May 5 at 5:40
    
@ChristopherPearson - Why don't you edit that in to the answer itself. Appreciated. –  rolfl May 5 at 10:20
    
@rolfl - I don't have enough rep to edit community wiki's. –  Christopher Pearson May 5 at 16:06
up vote 5 down vote

HTML5, XHTML, CSS

Tool: Markup validation checker

Also, there are beautifiers to help improve formatting, CodeBeautify.org has a good one.

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up vote 4 down vote

VB.NET

  • ReSharper (commercial)

    A paid Visual Studio extension (possibility for open-source "community" license though) with a free 30-day trial.

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As of the Visual Studio 2015 RC, some of this functionality is built in. visualstudio.com/news/vs2015-vs#ManLang –  RubberDuck May 1 at 15:55
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@RubberDuck Yeah, VS ended up implementing an actual "rename" refactoring, too. But VS just isn't the same without R# ;) –  Mat's Mug♦ May 1 at 15:56
up vote 7 down vote

C / C++

  • Coverity, a commercial static analyzer, free for open source developers

  • Cppcheck, an open-source static analyzer

  • CppDepend, a commercial static analyzer based on Clang

  • flint, another open-source static analyzer

  • gcc

Website: https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Warning-Options.html

Simply compiling code with -Wall -Wextra -pedantic options catches quite a number of potential or actual problems.

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up vote 4 down vote

Java

Java lint tools are usually dependent of the IDE you develop in. All the major IDE's (Eclipse, IntelliJ, Netbeans, etc. - alphabetical order) have mechanisms in place for not only checking for lint-like problems, but also for fixing them too.

Features to expect from your IDE - identification of, and correction of:

  1. automatic code formatting (indentation, brace positions, line-wrapping, etc.)
  2. redundant code, or impossible code
  3. incomplete documentation
  4. variable and function name "shadowing"
  5. and much, much more.

Standalone tools:

  1. PMD
  2. FindBugs
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There is also a bunch of maven plugins that can be used –  Simon Forsberg♦ May 2 at 11:14
    
Funny enough running PMD on PMD reveals the exact thing it's trying to correct ;) –  Bono May 6 at 14:35
up vote 3 down vote

SQL

General:

SQL Server / Transact-SQL

Online: SQL-Format.org

Natively: SET SHOWPLAN_XML

MySQL

Online: MySQL Syntax Check

Natively: EXPLAIN

PostgreSQL & PL/pgSQL

Plugin: pg-validator

Natively: EXPLAIN

SQLite

Plugin: sqllogictest

Natively: EXPLAIN

Oracle:

Natively: EXPLAIN

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up vote 3 down vote

PHP

Online:

Plugins:

You can also use the native php_check_syntax from an IDE or command line.

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up vote 9 down vote

C#

  • StyleCop (free)

    It can be run from inside of Visual Studio or integrated into an MSBuild project.

  • ReSharper (commercial)

    A paid Visual Studio extension (possibility for open-source "community" license though) with a free 30-day trial.

  • FxCop (free)

    Can be run standalone, but later versions are bundled into Visual Studio as the "Code Analysis" feature.

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up vote 4 down vote

Delphi

Tool: FixInsight (commercial)

Website: http://sourceoddity.com/fixinsight/

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up vote 0 down vote

JSON

Online validator: JSONLint.com

They also have a free Pro Version

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up vote 2 down vote

Regex:

JS-Flavored

Offline-Tools:

  • RegexBuddy - commercial regex-development helper tool, supporting a multitude of regex-flavors and programming languages
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up vote 0 down vote

Scala

Style checker plug-in: ScalaStyle.org

Online evaluator: SimplyScala.com

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up vote 2 down vote

Objective-C

Plugins:

These should also work for C/C++

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Can I be on this list? –  nhgrif May 1 at 18:49
1  
The real question is: Do you really want to? ;-) –  Phrancis May 1 at 19:01
    
Note Atom.io is a text-editor. linter is a plug-in for Atom providing the necessary checks for many, many languages. –  Mast May 1 at 21:44
    
Good catch, I corrected it! –  Phrancis May 1 at 21:48
up vote 1 down vote

Perl

Plugins:

Or natively using B::Lint module.

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up vote 3 down vote

C

Although not currently actively developed, this free, open-source software provides error checking that can be enhanced with in-code commenting.

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up vote 0 down vote

Bash, Shell

Online:

Plugins:

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up vote 0 down vote

MongoDB

Plugins:

Or natively use validate

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up vote 1 down vote

Lua

Plugins:

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up vote 2 down vote

Ruby

Gems:

  • rubocop is probably the most popular

But there are many more each with emphasis on different things (style, code complexity, etc.).

Online:

  • Don't know if this counts as it's more like CI, but there's always CodeClimate (also works for JavaScript, PHP, and Python)
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