Defining a Quality Manager Expansion Plugin

The Adelia quality manager can be expanded by means of user-provided plugins. A quality manager expansion plugin comprises a description file describing the metrics and quality rules provided by the plugin, along with an optional expansion program called by the analysis program to calculate the metrics and generate rule violations.

Note: The expansion program is optional. A plugin comprised solely of a set of "regular expression verification" rules has no need of an expansion DLL.

The elements defining a plugin are as follows:

Plugin description file

The plugin description file is an XML file containing the list of metrics and rules implemented, along with a reference to the expansion program. This file must conform to an XSD schema.

A plugin is comprised of the following elements (required unless otherwise indicated):

- Name of the plugin provider	e.g.: Hardis.
- Name of the plugin itself	e.g.: Standard Adelia metric.
- Plugin internal ID	e.g.: com.hardis.adelia
- Plugin description	Optional.
- Expansion DLL	Optional.
- List of metrics	Optional, implies an expansion program.
- List of quality rules	Optional, implies an expansion program if the rules are not of the "regular expression verification" type.

A metric description contains the following information:

- Name of the metric	e.g.: Number of lines.
- Internal ID of the metric	e.g.: nblines.
- Data type	e.g.: integer. Possible values: boolean, integer, Decimal, percentage and string
- Application area	Optional for SONAR classification.

A rule description contains the following information:

- Name of the rule	e.g.: Truncated data.
- Internal ID of the rule	e.g.: truncation.
- Description of the rule	Optional.
- Rule type	Optional. 0 = standard rule (by default), 1 = regular expression verification rule.
- Severity of a rule violation	Optional. Value ranging from 1 (information) to 5 (critical), default 3 (major).
- List of rule parameters	Optional.
- Application area	Optional for SONAR classification.

The description of a quality rule contains the following information:

- Parameter internal ID.
- Parameter description.
- Parameter default value.

The following limits apply:

Length of an internal ID	128
Maximum name length	128
Maximum description length	512
Maximum parameter value length	1024
Maximum metric value length	96	SONAR constraint

In the context of SONAR integration, the following additional naming conventions (related to the manner in which the Adelia SONAR plugin generates unique IDs for rules and metrics in the SONAR repository) apply:

- Internal IDs must conform to Java package naming syntax (xxx.yyy.zzz).
- The length of a metric's internal ID + the length of the plugin's internal ID must not exceed 62 characters.
- The length of a rule's internal ID + the length of the plugin's internal ID must not exceed 198 characters.

The XML file is of the following form (Click here for a full definition of the schema):

<plugin id="com.hardis.example">

  <provider>Hardis</provider>

  <name>Plugin example</name>

  <dll version="1">PLUGIN.DLL</dll>

  <metrics>

    <metric id="nblines" type="integer">

      <name>Number of source lines</name>

      <description>Number of text lines in a source file</description>

    </metric>

  </metrics>

  <rules>

    <rule id="complexity" severity="2">

      <name>Too complex block</name>

      <description>Too many lines of code in the source block</description>

      <parameters>

        <parameter id="nbmax_lines">

          <name>Number of lines</name>

          <description>Maximum authorized number of lines...</description>

          <value>200</value>

        </parameter>

      </parameters>

    </rule>

  </rules>

</plugin>

The nodes

Plugin node

This node defines the plugin. It is the file's main node.

Attributes

Name	Mand.	Values	Description
id	Yes	String	Plugin internal ID.
version	No	Integer	Version number (0 by default).

Data

- n/a -

Child nodes

provider	Provider name.
name	Plugin name.
dll	Name of the expansion DLL (optional).
metrics	List of metrics (optional).
rules	List of rules (optional).

Provider node

Attributes

- n/a -

Data

Name of the plugin provider.

Child nodes

- n/a -

Name node

Attributes

- n/a -

Data

Item name (plugin, metric, rule).

Child nodes

- n/a -

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DLL node

Attributes

Name	Mand.	Values	Description
version	No	Integer	DLL version number (0 by default).

Data

Expansion DLL name.

Child nodes

- n/a -

Metrics node

Attributes

- n/a -

Data

- n/a -

Child nodes

metric*

List of metrics.

Metric node

This node defines a metric.

Attributes

Name	Mand.	Values	Description
id	Yes	String	Metric internal ID.
type	Yes	Boolean Integer Decimal Percentage String	Metric data type.
domain	No	String	Name of the SONAR domain for metric classification (General by default).

Data

- n/a -

Child nodes

name	Name of the metric.
description	Description of the metric (optional).

Rules node

Attributes

- n/a -

Data

- n/a -

Child nodes

rule*

List of rules.

Rule node

This node defines a rule.

Attributes

Name	Mand.	Values	Description
id	Yes	String	Rule internal ID.
severity	No	1-5	Severity of a rule violation: from Information (1) to Critical (5). By default, 3 (Major).
domain	No	String	Name of the SONAR domain for rule classification (General by default).
type	No	0/1	Rule type: Normal (0) by default, or Regular expression verification (1).
programTypes	No	String	List of abbreviated program types (AD_I, AD_B, etc.) to which the rule applies, separated by semi-colons. If not specified, the rule applies to all programs.

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Parameters node

Attributes

- n/a -

Data

- n/a -

Child nodes

parameter*

List of parameters.

Parameter node

This node defines a parameter.

Attributes

Name	Mand.	Values	Description
id	Yes	String	Internal parameter ID (unique to the rule).

Data

- n/a -

Child nodes

name	Parameter name.
description	Parameter description (optional).
value	Parameter value.

Value node

Attributes

- n/a -

Data

Value of a parameter.

Child nodes

- n/a -

Regular expression verification

The quality manager provides a special rule type, for which an exception is raised when a line of source code verifies a regular expression. Verification of this type of rule does not require an expansion program.

A "regular expression verification" type rule is of the following form:

<rule id="sql_code_not_found" type="1" severity="2">

  <name>Boucle *SQLCODE dangerous</name>

  <description>Never test "not found" as loop exit.</description>

  <parameters>

    <parameter id="regexpr">

      <value><![CDATA[^\s*DO_WHILE\s+\*SQLCODE\s*\<\>\s*\*NOT_FOUND]]></value>

    </parameter>

    <parameter id="casesensitive">

      <value>1</value>

    </parameter>

    <parameter id="clientserver">

      <!-- client / server / both (default) -->

      <value>both</value>

    </parameter>

  </parameters>

</rule>

The rule parameters are as follows:

regexpr	Mandatory	String	Regular expression. A violation is raised if the expression is verified.
casesensitive	Optional	0 or 1	Case sensitivity (0 by default - case-insensitive).
clientserver	Optional	Client, server or both	Specifies whether the rule applies to the client part, server part or to both (by default).

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