Best Java Code Review Tools to Ensure Better Code Quality

Best Java Code Review Tools to Ensure Better Code Quality

 Java is the first choice of many developers since its release over two decades ago. As it is a mature and extremely popular technology, there are numerous automated Java code review tools that developers can use for code quality analysis.

What is Code Review & Analysis?

Code review is a practice of checking if an already written code meets the coding conventions and standards. Other than manual code reviews, software developers and testers can also conduct static and dynamic code analysis using automated tools.

Static code analysis reviews the source code without executing it. Dynamic code analysis is performed while the code or a part or unit of it, for instance unit or integration testing, is being executed.

Why Should You Conduct Code Reviews?

Poor quality of source code leads to headaches, overworked days, and sleepless nights for software developers and product owners. Planning and performing code reviews is often overlooked by management which results in long-term negative effects on software development efficiency as well as the whole business.

Working with poor source code quality may lead to:

• Difficulty in integrating new features, while causing the existing ones to break in the process
• Time-consuming bug fixes, missing deadlines, and delayed crucial updates
• Time-taking onboarding process for new developers as the code base is difficult to read and comprehend.
• Negative impact on user’s perception of the software product and the whole company
• Less accurate estimations for future development as it is impossible to determine how long it would take to add new features without breaking the existing ones

As a leading company for Java development services, we conduct manual and automated Java code review to deliver the best-quality code for your product. Some of the top Java code reviews tools we use have been discussed below. We recommend even Java developers use these tools to deliver a high-quality codebase.

Top Java Code Review Tools for Java Developers

1. Checkstyle

This tool is used for static code analysis in software development to see if Java code adheres to coding standards. It automates the lengthy code review process and helps Java developers apply coding standards.

Checkstyle can locate anything from class or method design issues to code layout and formatting problems. It also has plenty of plugins that allow developers to integrate code reviews into their projects.

• PMD

PMD is a source code analyzer that finds common programming errors including empty catch blocks, unused project creation, unused variables, and more. Apart from Java, it supports JavaScript, XML, PLSQL, XSL, Salesforce Apex and VisualForce, and Apache Velocity.  

The PMD tool is available as a zip archive that contains both PMD and CPD.  Once you download the tools, you can unzip them into the preferred directory. You can learn about the PMD installation from the PMD Java documentation.

• SonarQube

Another one on this list of Java code review tools is SonarQube. This open-source code quality analysis tool is used to conduct automatic reviews with static analysis of code to identify coding errors, bugs, and security vulnerabilities.

Developers get reports on bugs, coding standards, duplicate code blocks, unit tests, comments, code coverage, code complexity, and so on.

It is the preferred choice for Java code analysis, especially for development teams using Maven and Gradle. However, others can use the tool by manually providing bytecode to the code analysis.

SonarQube currently supports 27 coding languages including Java, JavaScript, PHP, TypeScript C#, C/C++, Kotlin, Ruby, Go, and Python.

• JArchitect

JArchitect is a static Java code review analysis tool for reviewing Java source code. This tool supports numerous code metrics such as the number of parameters, cyclomatic complexity, variables and lines of code, afferent and efferent coupling, etc.

If you’re indulged in Java development services, then this code analysis is a must-have. JArchitect enables teams to identify architectural defects, visualize and handle dependencies with the help of directed graphs and dependency matrix features.

• JUnit

As its name suggests, JUnit is a unit testing tool used for the Java programming language. It is a method for analyzing the performance of individual units, modules, or components of the source code.

Using this tool, teams can write and perform unit tests for Java 8 and above versions. JUnit 5, the latest version, is made of different modules:

• The JUnit Platform handles the launch of testing frameworks on the JVM.
• JUnit Jupiter comes with new programming and extension models for writing tests.
• JUnit Vintage supports executing JUnit 3 and 4 tests on the platform.

JUnit is an extremely popular unit testing framework used for Java-based product development. In general, it is the most commonly included external library.

• JaCoCo

This is one of the open-source Java code review tools used for measuring and reporting code coverage.

The term code coverage in software development refers to the amount of a program’s source code a test plan covers. Many tools, IDEs, and platforms already include the JaCoCo plugin including SonarQube, Jenkins, Eclipse, IntelliJ, Netbeans, Gradle, Visual Studio, etc.

• NullAway

Another important tool on this list of Java code review tools is NullAway. This tool enables you to eliminate Null Pointer Exceptions from your Java code. NullAway can be used by adding  @Nullable annotation wherever a method parameter or return value in your Java source code becomes null. It is very fast and can execute every build of code.

• jQAssistant

This tool allows for the validation and definition of project-based rules on an architectural level. jQAssistant has been built upon Neo4j and can be rammed into the build process to automatically identify the violation limitations while generating reports on user-defined metrics and models.

It is used to validate the module dependencies of the project, identify common problems like tests with no assertions, and separate API and implementation packages. For more information, you can check jQAssistant’s site and study the tutorials.

Wrapping Up

Over the years, we have been delivering Java development services to our clients and we are committed to delivering a high-quality codebase for their products. As per our experience, these are some of the best Java code review tools that we use for software development, web application development, or website development.

These tools save the time spent on fixing the code and increase productivity. However, the decision to choose the tools must depend on the amount of testing and requirements of your project.

If you need the right guidance during the Java code review analysis, you can hire Java developers from us today.

FAQs

Q.1. What are the guidelines for Java code review?

Ans. Here are some key guidelines that you need to follow for Java code review:

• Adhere to Java code conventions and standards
• Eliminate NullPointerException
• Exchange imperative code with lambdas and streams
• Directly assign references from client source code to a field
• Effective exception handling
• Think over the data structure options
• Think before you take an action

Hire Java developers at Java India, who follow all the code review guidelines to provide a top-quality codebase.

Q.2. How do I check my Java code quality?

Ans.  Analyzing code automatically is one of the most effective ways to measure and improve code quality. However, by running a static code analyzer over the written code early and regularly, you can ensure that the source code that reaches the Java code review stage is of the highest quality as much as possible. You can use this tool to monitor key code quality metrics as well.