Custom Rules in Checkstyle for ensuring Logger is declared as a Static Final Class Attribute - checkstyle

Question

I have written the above rule and when trying to run it from the command line I keep getting the same message namely:
Unable to create Checker: cannot initialize module TreeWalker - Unable to instantiate LoggerAttrCheck
I have stripped down my checks to just one in Checker and one in Treewalker, copied religiously the entries as suggested in the manual and no joy. Anyone had similar issues with custom rules. I am WinXP, java 1.6 (Eclipse), checkstyle-5.1 folder is in path.
I can provide code but this smells of an environmental issue.
Code is as follows:
package com.mystuff.checkstyle.hecks;
import com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.api.Check;
import com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.api.DetailAST;
import com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.api.FullIdent;
import com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.api.TokenTypes;
import com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks.CheckUtils;
/**
*
*
* This package provides the custom checks that were required outside
* of the standard checks provided
*
*/
public class LoggerAttrCheck extends Check
{
/**
*
*
* The Logger must be declared as a static final class attribute
*
*/
#Override
public int[] getDefaultTokens()
{
return new int[] { TokenTypes.VARIABLE_DEF};
}
#Override
public void visitToken(DetailAST aAST)
{
if(aAST.getType()==TokenTypes.VARIABLE_DEF)
visitVariableDef(aAST);
}
/**
* Checks type of given variable.
* #param aAST variable to check.
*/
private void visitVariableDef(DetailAST aAST)
{
checkVariableDefn(aAST);
}
/**
*
* Checks variable to see if its a Logger and static final
* * #param aAST node to check.
*/
private void checkVariableDefn(DetailAST aAST)
{
final DetailAST type = aAST.findFirstToken(TokenTypes.TYPE);
final FullIdent ident = CheckUtils.createFullType(type);
if ((ident.getText().equals("Logger")))
{
if((!aAST.branchContains(TokenTypes.FINAL))||(!aAST.branchContainsTokenTypes.LITERAL_STATIC)))
{
log(type.getLineNo(), type.getColumnNo(),
"Logger not defined as static final class attribute", type.getText());
}
}
}
}
This builds com.stuff.checkstyle.checks.jar, so the the checkstyle_packages.xml looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE checkstyle-packages PUBLIC
"-//Puppy Crawl//DTD Package Names 1.3//EN"
"http://www.puppycrawl.com/dtds/packages_1_3.dtd">
<checkstyle-packages>
<package name="com.mystuff.checkstyle.checks"/>
</checkstyle-packages>
All ideas gratefully received !

Answer 1

What does your checkstyle configuration file look like? It appears that your checkstyle_packages.xml is being ignored. I found I couldn't add my package to the checkstyle-packages and so declared my check with the full package name:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE module PUBLIC
"-//Puppy Crawl//DTD Check Configuration 1.2//EN"
"http://www.puppycrawl.com/dtds/configuration_1_2.dtd">
<module name="Checker">
<module name="TreeWalker">
<!-- Blundell specific checks -->
<module name="com.blundell.checks.AntiHungarian" />
</module>
</module>
Note that the java class name for the check is AntiHungarianCheck but you declare is as just AntiHungarian
Taken from my custom checkstyle example here:
http://blog.blundell-apps.com/create-your-own-checkstyle-check/
and source code here:
https://github.com/blundell/CreateYourOwnCheckStyleCheck