Android Lint is a new tool introduced in ADT 16 (and Tools 16) which scans Android project sources for potential bugs. It is available both as a command line tool, as well as integrated with Eclipse (described below), and IntelliJ (details). The architecture is deliberately IDE independent so it will hopefully be integrated with other IDEs, with other build tools and with continuous integration systems as well.![]() Here are some examples of the types of errors that it looks for:
and many more. See this document for a full list of the current checks performed by lint. For information on how to suppress specific lint warnings, see the suppressing warnings document. If you're interested in writing custom lint checks, see Writing New Lint Checks and Writing Custom Lint Rules. Command Line UsageThere is a command line tool in the SDK tools/ directory called If you have the SDK lint .tools/ directory on your path, you can invoke it as “lint ”. Just point to a specific Android project directory. You can also point to a random directory, which (if it is not an Android project) will be searched recursively and all projects under that directory will be checked. (And you can also specify multiple projects separated by spaces).$ lint /src/astrid/ Scanning GreenDroid-GoogleAPIs: .. Scanning stream: ... Scanning api: ........................... Scanning GDCatalog: ....................... Scanning GreenDroid: ........................................................... Scanning tests: ... Scanning filters: .... Scanning tests: ..... Scanning astrid: .................................................................................................................................................... Scanning simple: ....... api/res/values-ca: Error: Locale ca is missing translations for: sync_SPr_bgwifi_key, sync_SPr_forget_key, sync_SPr_interval_values, sync_SPr_logged_in_prefix... (2 more) [MissingTranslation] astrid/res/values-ca: Error: Locale ca is missing translations for: DLG_cancel, DLG_dismiss, DLG_ok, EPr_deactivated... (117 more) [MissingTranslation] api/res/values-cs: Error: Locale cs is missing translations for: sync_SPr_bgwifi_key, sync_SPr_forget_key, sync_SPr_interval_values, sync_SPr_logged_in_prefix... (2 more) [MissingTranslation] (many lines omitted) 43 errors, 466 warnings Disabling ChecksThe “id” for each type of error is shown in brackets after the error message, such as “MissingTranslation” above. You can disable a specific check, or a list of checks, by adding the --disable argument, e.g. $ lint --disable MissingTranslation,UnusedIds,Usability:Icons /src/astrid/ Note that you can list categories as well, such as “Usability:Icons” above, which is the Icons subcategory of the Usability category. Some checks are disabled by default. These can be enabled by adding the --enable flag.Finally, you can specify which exact checks to run with the --check flag. This lets you look for a specific problem in the codebase, such as:$ lint --check MissingPrefix /src/astrid/ To find out which id’s and categories are available, run $ lint --list Valid issue categories: Correctness Security Performance Usability Usability:Icons Accessibility Internationalization Valid issue id's: "ContentDescription": Ensures that image widgets provide a contentDescription "DuplicateIds": Checks for duplicate ids within a single layout "StateListReachable": Looks for unreachable states in a <selector> "InefficientWeight": Looks for inefficient weight declarations in LinearLayouts "ScrollViewSize": Checks that ScrollViews use wrap_content in scrolling dimension "MergeRootFrame": Checks whether a root <FrameLayout> can be replaced with a <merge> tag ... And to get the explanation for a specific issue use the --show command along with a list of id’s or categories (or no arguments at all to see everything):$ lint --show MissingPrefix MissingPrefix ------------- Summary: Detect XML attributes not using the Android namespace Priority: 8 / 10 Severity: Warning Category: Correctness Most Android views have attributes in the Android namespace. When referencing these attributes you *must* include the namespace prefix, or your attribute will be interpreted by aapt as just a custom attribute. HTML ReportsThe command line tool can also generate HTML reports. This has some advantages over the plain lint output:
--html filename as an argument:$ lint --html /tmp/report.html By default, links to source files will just use local file:// path resources. You can remap the URLs to a different prefix with the --url option. For example: $ lint --html /tmp/report.html --url /src/MyProj=http://buildserver/src/MyProj Other Command Line OptionsRun lint --help to get information on the available arguments. |
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