How to compile project with Google Checkstyle rules with gradle?

Question

I am trying to use Google checkstyle configuration (https://github.com/checkstyle/checkstyle/blob/master/src/main/resources/google_checks.xml) but I am constantly getting an error on `gradle check`: ``` Unable to create a Checker: cannot initialize module TreeWalker - Unable to instantiate EmptyCatchBlock ``` I used Gradle to build the project. Below is my gradle.build. ``` apply plugin: 'java' apply plugin: 'idea' apply plugin: 'checkstyle' sourceCompatibility = 1.8 version = '1.0' checkstyle { toolVersion = "6.3" } task "create-dirs" << { sourceSets*.java.srcDirs*.each { it.mkdirs() } sourceSets*.resources.srcDirs*.each { it.mkdirs() } } jar { manifest { attributes 'Implementation-Title': 'xyz', 'Implementation-Version': 0.01 } } repositories { mavenCentral() } dependencies { compile ( ['org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-api:2.2'], ['org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-core:2.2'] ) testCompile( ['junit:junit:4.11'], ['org.mockito:mockito-core:1.+'] ) } test { systemProperties 'property': 'v…

Accepted Answer

The problem lies in the fact that `com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks.blocks.EmptyCatchBlockCheck` was indeed added to checkstyle but for version 6.4-SNAPSHOT. As it can be seen in checkstyle repository (pom.xml history) version 6.4-SNAPSHOT was introduced on the 02.02.2015 and `EmptyCatchBlockCheck` class was created on 18.02.2015.

Gradle still uses version 6.3 as in the following log extract:

```
:checkstyleMain
Download https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/6.3/checkstyle-6.3.pom
```

So there's simply no class You'd like to use.

According to the docs checkstyle classpath can be specified with `checkstyleClasspath` property - you can try to set it up manually.

I've also prepared a demo with 6.4-SNAPSHOT version, it can be found here. Checkstyle jar was built with `mvn clean package` with source taken from this repo.

How to compile project with Google Checkstyle rules with gradle?

Solution

Problem