4.0 LTS

Version 4.0 is a LTS (Long Term Service) release and will be maintained for at least 18 months.

Upgrade notes

• We’ve made a lot of changes to the Quality Profiles. If you don’t want to use the new rules, you should make a copy of the current Quality Profile and use that.

Release notes

New Apex rules:

1. Avoid Calling aggregate functions on non grouped query.
   • Calling aggregate functions can easily overrun governor limits that limit the total number of rows accessed.
2. Remove Commented TODO and FIXME.
3. Variable Declaration Hides Another.
   • Variables defined within a method scope should not hide class fields.
4. Unreachable Code
   • Code that will never execute should be removed.
5. Method Could be Static
   • Methods that can be called outside an object being created can be converted to static.
6. Commented Out Code
   • Commented out code should be removed.
7. Avoid Using For Loops to just add Elements to a Collection
   • Consider using the .addAll method instead.
8. Exception Class Naming
   • A Class name that extends an exception should have a name that ends in “Exception”.
9. Exception Classes Should Extend an Exception
   • A Class name that ends in “Exception” should extend an exception.
10. Class does not have a corresponding test class
    • Every Class should have a corresponding Test Class which is named appropriately.
11. Throw from Finally Block
    • Avoid throwing from a finally block, this can discard exceptions.
12. Opening Brace Spacing
    • Opening brace spacing should be consistent.
13. Opening Brace Line Position
    • Opening brace line position should be consistent.
14. Closing Brace Spacing
    • Closing brace spacing should be consistent.
15. Closing Brace Line Position
    • Closing brace line position should be consistent.
16. Class Without Test Class
    • Every class should have a corresponding test class which is named appropriately.
17. Avoid Get and Set Methods
    • Accessors should be defined with the field where possible.

Improved Apex rules:

1. Only One Return
   • Now marks all a method’s return statements in a single violation.
2. Avoid Assignment in Operand
   • A new parameter allows or disallows assignments in method arguments
3. Unit tests should include assert
   • You can now pass a parameter to identify helper classes which does an assert
4. Return empty array rather than null
   • Now checks for null returns on Set and List results.
5. God class rule
   • Variable matching not being done case-insensitive
6. Unnecessary Case Change rule
   • Checks for foo.equals(bar.toLowerCase()); instead of only foo.toLowerCase().equals(‘foo’);
7. Broken null check
   • Checks for parentheses if ( (x==null) || (x.equals('something')) ) {} correctly
8. Assignment has no effect
   • Checks for a few more scenarios like this.variable = this.variable
   • Renamed this rule from ‘Idempotent Operation’
9. Law of Demeter
   • Now allows replace method chaining.
10. Comment is Required
    • Now includes parameter for accessors.
11. API is too old
    • Now shows the current and required versions in the violation message.
12. Useless Parentheses
    • Reduced strictness and fixed several scenarios: insert(DML), a || (b && c), ('a' + b).substring(0,3).
13. Unnecessary Parentheses
    • This Rule has been deprecated. The Useless Parentheses rule now covers all occurences.

• Test Class Without Test Cases
  • This rule now ignores classes that extend WebServiceMock and HttpCalloutMock.

New Visual Force rules:

1. Avoid Hard-Coded Resource References
   • Identifies files that have been referenced with a hard-coded path instead of uploading the files as a Static Resource.
2. Avoid hard-coded Page Links
   • Page links should use {!$Page.otherPage} instead of hard-coded links such as /apex/otherpage.html.
3. Avoid hard-coded Resources
   • Files should be uploaded as a static resource and referenced using {!$Resource.something} instead of hard-coded links such as /resources/something.jpg

Updated Visual Force rules:

1. Avoid HTML Comments
   • Now includes a parameter to ignore header comments.

Improvements:

• Compatibility for SonarQube 7.1 - v4.0.8
• Various rule documentation improvements
• Multiple rules around public classes/methods now take global into account
• Severity level improvements
• Rule tag improvements
• Aligned rule defaults with Google’s Style Guide. Using the “CodeScan strict way” Quality Profile will include all these coding guidelines.
• Removed all deprecated rules
• Updated the “CodeScan way” default Quality Profile to include important new rules.
• Added “CodeScan strict way” Quality Profile to extend the new “CodeScan way”.
• New formatting for violations spread over multiple lines.
• Added violation rule to track unit test failures.
• Support SFDX oauth credentials - v4.0.9
• Added support for switch statements - v4.0.12
• Added support for aura:unescapedHtml in vf:UnescapedAttributes - v4.0.14

Bug Fixes:

• Unit Test Contains Too Many Asserts - fixed false positive.
• SuppressWarnings - changed to case-insensitive
• History Unit Test - deleted tests were being reported incorrectly
• Dataflow analysis for Database.getQueryLocator correctly resolves used parameters (like Database.query)
• Avoid InstanceOf in Catch Block - changed to case-insensitive
• Unused Local Variable - fixed false positive.
• Comment rules - fixed multiple false positives/negatives.
• Constructor Calls Overridable Method - false positives around virtual vs final
• Possible DAA Analysis bug fix when split over multiple lines - v4.0.4
• False negatives on Unit Test Should Include Assert - v4.0.4
• suppressUnitTestViolations reported violations in tests for certain rules
• Unit tests should include assert - extraAssertFunctions parameter was not finding all possible assert functions.
• Fixed unit tests incorrectly showing old failures.
• Fixed error caused by file encoding mismatches.
• Fixed errors preventing use of the IntelliJ plugin.
• Fixed bug in Avoid Duplicate Literals rule - violations appearing after first scan v4.0.6.
• Fixed bug in Avoid Unused Private Methods - methods would be seen as unused when a parameters namespaces were different v4.0.8.
• Fixed potential bug in SQL Injection Rule - v4.0.10
• Fixed potential bug in Unit tests - v4.0.13
• Fixed parsing error that occurred when using enums inside triggers - v4.0.13
• Fixed parsing error that occurred in lightning components - v4.0.13
• Fixed parsing error in symbol highlithing - v4.0.13
• Fixed bug in vf:UnescapedAttributes - v4.0.14