NAME
perlcritic - Command-line interface to critique Perl source
SYNOPSIS
perlcritic [-12345 | -brutal | -cruel | -harsh | -stern | -gentle]
[-severity number | name] [-profile file | -noprofile]
[-top [ number ]] [-theme expression] [-include pattern]
[-exclude pattern] [-singlepolicy pattern] [-only | -noonly]
[-force | -noforce] [-verbose number | format] [-nocolor]
[-quiet] {FILE | DIRECTORY | STDIN}
perlcritic -doc pattern [...]
perlcritic {-list | -profileproto | -help | -man | -Version}DESCRIPTION
perlcritic is a Perl source code analyzer. It is the executable front-end to the Perl::Critic engine, which attempts to identify awkward, hard to read, error-prone, or unconventional constructs in your code. Most of the rules are based on Damian Conway's book Perl Best Practices. However, perlcritic is not limited to enforcing PBP, and it will even support rules that contradict Conway. All rules can easily be configured or disabled to your liking.
If you want to integrate perlcritic with your build process, the Test::Perl::Critic module provides a nice interface that is suitable for test scripts. For ultimate convenience (at the expense of some flexibility) see the criticism pragma.
Win32 and ActivePerl users can find PPM distributions of Perl::Critic at http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppms/.
If you'd like to try Perl::Critic without installing anything, there is a web-service available at http://perlcritic.com. The web-service does not yet support all the configuration features that are available in the native Perl::Critic API, but it should give you a good idea of what it does. You can also invoke the perlcritic web-service from the command line by doing an HTTP-post, such as one of these:
$> POST http://perlcritic.com/perl/critic.pl < MyModule.pm
$> lwp-request -m POST http://perlcritic.com/perl/critic.pl < MyModule.pm
$> wget -q -O - --post-file=MyModule.pm http://perlcritic.com/perl/critic.plPlease note that the perlcritic web-service is still alpha code. The URL and interface to the service are subject to change.
USAGE EXAMPLES
Before getting into all the gory details, here are some basic usage examples to help get you started.
#Report only most severe violations (severity = 5)
perlcritic YourModule.pm
#Same as above, but read input from STDIN
perlcritic
#Recursively process all Perl files beneath directory
perlcritic /some/directory
#Report slightly less severe violations too (severity >= 4)
perlcritic -4 YourModule.pm
#Same as above, but using named severity level
perlcritic -stern YourModule.pm
#Report all violations, regardless of severity (severity >= 1)
perlcritic -1 YourModule.pm
#Same as above, but using named severity level
perlcritic -brutal YourModule.pm
#Report only violations of things from "Perl Best Practices"
perlcritic -theme pbp YourModule.pm
#Report top 20 most severe violations (severity >= 1)
perlcritic -top YourModule.pm
#Report additional violations of Policies that match m/variables/ix
perlcritic -include variables YourModule.pmARGUMENTS
The arguments are paths to the files you wish to analyze. You may specify multiple files. If an argument is a directory, perlcritic will analyze all Perl files below the directory. If no arguments are specified, then input is read from STDIN.
OPTIONS
Option names can be abbreviated to uniqueness and can be stated with singe or double dashes, and option values can be separated from the option name by a space or '=' (as with Getopt::Long). Option names are also case-sensitive.
-profile FILE-
Directs
perlcriticto use a profile named by FILE rather than looking for the default .perlcriticrc file in the current directory or your home directory. See "CONFIGURATION" for more information. -noprofile-
Directs
perlcriticnot to load any configuration file, thus reverting to the default configuration for all Policies. -severity N-
Directs
perlcriticto only report violations of Policies with a severity greater thanN. Severity values are integers ranging from 1 (least severe) to 5 (most severe). The default is 5. For a given-profile, decreasing the-severitywill usually produce more violations. You can set the default value for this option in your .perlcriticrc file. You can also redefine theseverityfor any Policy in your .perlcriticrc file. See "CONFIGURATION" for more information. -5 | -4 | -3 | -2 | -1-
These are numeric shortcuts for setting the
-severityoption. For example,"-4"is equivalent to"-severity 4". If multiple shortcuts are specified, then the most restrictive one wins. If an explicit-severityoption is also given, then all shortcut options are silently ignored. NOTE: Be careful not to put one of the number severity shortcut options immediately after the-topflag orperlcriticwill interpret it as the number of violations to report. -severity NAME-
If it is difficult for you to remember whether severity "5" is the most or least restrictive level, then you can use one of these named values:
SEVERITY NAME ...is equivalent to... SEVERITY NUMBER -------------------------------------------------------- -severity gentle -severity 5 -severity stern -severity 4 -severity harsh -severity 3 -severity cruel -severity 2 -severity brutal -severity 1 -gentle | -stern | -harsh | -cruel | -brutal-
These are named shortcuts for setting the
-severityoption. For example,"-cruel"is equivalent to"-severity 4". If multiple shortcuts are specified, then the most restrictive one wins. If an explicit-severityoption is also given, then all shortcut options are silently ignored. -theme EXPRESSION-
Directs
perlcriticto report only violations of Policies that are encompassed by theEXPRESSION. Themes are arbitrary names for groups of related policies. You can combine theme names with mathematical and boolean operators to create an arbitrarily complexEXPRESSION. See the "POLICY THEMES" section for more information. -include PATTERN-
Directs
perlcriticto report additional violations of all Policy modules that match the regex/PATTERN/imx. Use this option to temporarily override your profile and/or the severity settings at the command-line. For example:perlcritic -include=layout my_file.plThis would cause
perlcriticto report violations of all theCodeLayout::*policies even if they have a severity level that is less than the default level of 5, or have been disabled in your .perlcriticrc file. You can specify multiple-includeoptions and you can use it in conjunction with the-excludeoption. Note that-excludetakes precedence over-includewhen a Policy matches both patterns. You can set the default value for this option in your .perlcriticrc file. -exclude PATTERN-
Directs
perlcriticto not report violations of any Policy modules that match the regex/PATTERN/imx. Use this option to temporarily override your profile and/or the severity settings at the command-line. For example:perlcritic -exclude=strict my_file.plThis would cause
perlcriticto not report violations of theRequireUseStrictandProhibitNoStrictpolicies even though they have the highest severity level. You can specify multiple-excludeoptions and you can use it in conjunction with the-includeoption. Note that-excludetakes precedence over-includewhen a Policy matches both patterns. You can set the default value for this option in your .perlcriticrc file. -singlepolicy PATTERN-
Directs
perlcriticto report only violations of the single Policy module that matches the regex/PATTERN/imx. Use this option to temporarily override your profile and/or other command-line settings that specify the policies to use, including severity,-theme,-include,-exclude, and-onlyoptions. For example:perlcritic -singlepolicy=nowarnings my_file.plThis would cause
perlcriticto only report violations of theProhibitNoWarningspolicy, regardless of the severity level setting.This is equivalent to what one might intend by
perlcritic -exclude=. -include=nowarnings my_file.plbut this won't work because the
-excludeoption overrides the-includeoption.The equivalent of this option can be accomplished by creating a custom profile containing only the desired policy and then running...
perlcritic -profile=customprofile -only my_file.pl -top [ N ]-
Directs
perlcriticto report only the topNPolicy violations in each file, ranked by their severity. IfNis not specified, it defaults to 20. If the-severityoption (or one of the shortcuts) is not explicitly given, the-topoption implies that the minimum severity level is "1" (i.e. "brutal"). Users can redefine the severity for any Policy in their .perlcriticrc file. See "CONFIGURATION" for more information. You can set the default value for this option in your .perlcriticrc file. NOTE: Be careful not to put one of the severity shortcut options immediately after the-topflag orperlcriticwill interpret it as the number of violations to report. -force-
Directs
perlcriticto ignore the magical"## no critic"pseudo-pragmas in the source code. See "BENDING THE RULES" for more information. You can set the default value for this option in your .perlcriticrc file. -verbose N | FORMAT-
Sets the verbosity level or format for reporting violations. If given a number (
N),perlcriticreports violations using one of the predefined formats described below. If given a string (FORMAT), it is interpreted to be an actual format specification. If the-verboseoption is not specified, it defaults to either 4 or 5, depending on whether multiple files were given as arguments toperlcritic. You can set the default value for this option in your .perlcriticrc file.Verbosity Format Specification ----------- ------------------------------------------------------------- 1 "%f:%l:%c:%m\n", 2 "%f: (%l:%c) %m\n", 3 "%m at %f line %l\n", 4 "%m at line %l, column %c. %e. (Severity: %s)\n", 5 "%f: %m at line %l, column %c. %e. (Severity: %s)\n", 6 "%m at line %l, near '%r'. (Severity: %s)\n", 7 "%f: %m at line %l near '%r'. (Severity: %s)\n", 8 "[%p] %m at line %l, column %c. (Severity: %s)\n", 9 "[%p] %m at line %l, near '%r'. (Severity: %s)\n", 10 "%m at line %l, column %c.\n %p (Severity: %s)\n%d\n", 11 "%m at line %l, near '%r'.\n %p (Severity: %s)\n%d\n"Formats are a combination of literal and escape characters similar to the way
sprintfworks. See String::Format for a full explanation of the formatting capabilities. Valid escape characters are:Escape Meaning ------- ---------------------------------------------------------------- %c Column number where the violation occurred %d Full diagnostic discussion of the violation %e Explanation of violation or page numbers in PBP %f Name of the file where the violation occurred. %l Line number where the violation occurred %m Brief description of the violation %P Full name of the Policy module that created the violation %p Name of the Policy without the Perl::Critic::Policy:: prefix %r The string of source code that caused the violation %s The severity level of the violationThe purpose of these formats is to provide some compatibility with text editors that have an interface for parsing certain kinds of input. See "EDITOR INTEGRATION" for more information about that.
-list-
Displays a condensed listing of all the Perl::Critic::Policy modules that are found on this machine. For each Policy, the name, default severity and default themes are shown.
-profileproto-
Displays an expanded listing of all the Perl::Critic::Policy modules that are found on this machine. For each Policy, the name, default severity and default themes are shown. The format is suitable as a prototype for your .perlcriticrc file.
-only-
Directs perlcritic to choose only from policies that are explicitly named in your .perlcriticrc file. You can set the default value for this option in your .perlcriticrc file.
-count-C-
Display only the number of violations for each file. Use this feature to get a quick handle on where a large pile of code might need the most attention.
-Safari-
Report "Perl Best Practice" citations as section numbers from http://safari.oreilly.com instead of page numbers from the actual book. NOTE: This feature is not implemented yet.
-nocolor-
By default, Severity 5 and 4 are colored red and yellow, respectively. Colorization only happens if STDOUT is a tty and Term::ANSIColor is installed. And it only works on non-windows environments. Set this switch to disable color.
-doc PATTERN-
Displays the perldoc for all Perl::Critic::Policy modules that match
m/PATTERN/imx. Since Policy modules tend to have rather long names, this just provides a more convenient way to say something like:"perldoc Perl::Critic::Policy::ValuesAndExpressions::RequireUpperCaseHeredocTerminator"at the command prompt. -quiet-
Suppress the "source OK" message if no violations are found.
-help-?-H-
Displays a brief summary of options and exits.
-man-
Displays the complete
perlcriticmanual and exits. -Version-V-
Displays the version number of
perlcriticand exits.
CONFIGURATION
Most of the settings for Perl::Critic and each of the Policy modules can be controlled by a configuration file. The default configuration file is called .perlcriticrc. Perl::Critic::Config will look for this file in the current directory first, and then in your home directory. Alternatively, you can set the PERLCRITIC environment variable to explicitly point to a different file in another location. If none of these files exist, and the -profile option is not given on the command line, then all Policies will be loaded with their default configuration.
The format of the configuration file is a series of INI-style blocks that contain key-value pairs separated by "=". Comments should start with "#" and can be placed on a separate line or after the name-value pairs if you desire.
Default settings for perlcritic itself can be set before the first named block. For example, putting any or all of these at the top of your .perlcriticrc file will set the default value for the corresponding command-line argument.
severity = 3 #Integer or named level
only = 1 #Zero or One
force = 0 #Zero or One
verbose = 4 #Integer or format spec
top = 50 #A positive integer
theme = (pbp + security) * bugs #A theme expression
include = NamingConventions ClassHierarchies #Space-delimited list
exclude = Variables Modules::RequirePackage #Space-delimited listThe remainder of the configuration file is a series of blocks like this:
[Perl::Critic::Policy::Category::PolicyName]
severity = 1
set_themes = foo bar
add_themes = baz
arg1 = value1
arg2 = value2Perl::Critic::Policy::Category::PolicyName is the full name of a module that implements the policy. The Policy modules distributed with Perl::Critic have been grouped into categories according to the table of contents in Damian Conway's book Perl Best Practices. For brevity, you can omit the 'Perl::Critic::Policy' part of the module name.
severity is the level of importance you wish to assign to the Policy. All Policy modules are defined with a default severity value ranging from 1 (least severe) to 5 (most severe). However, you may disagree with the default severity and choose to give it a higher or lower severity, based on your own coding philosophy. You can set the severity to an integer from 1 to 5, or use one of the equivalent names:
SEVERITY NAME ...is equivalent to... SEVERITY NUMBER
----------------------------------------------------
gentle 5
stern 4
harsh 3
cruel 2
brutal 1set_themes sets the theme for the Policy and overrides it's default theme. The argument is a string of one or more whitespace-delimited alphanumeric words. Themes are case-insensitive. See "POLICY THEMES" for more information.
add_themes appends to the default themes for this Policy. The argument is a string of one or more whitespace-delimited words. Themes are case-insensitive. See "POLICY THEMES" for more information.
The remaining key-value pairs are configuration parameters that will be passed into the constructor of that Policy. The constructors for most Policy modules do not support arguments, and those that do should have reasonable defaults. See the documentation on the appropriate Policy module for more details.
Instead of redefining the severity for a given Policy, you can completely disable a Policy by prepending a '-' to the name of the module in your configuration file. In this manner, the Policy will never be loaded, regardless of the -severity given on the command line.
A simple configuration might look like this:
#--------------------------------------------------------------
# I think these are really important, so always load them
[TestingAndDebugging::RequireUseStrict]
severity = 5
[TestingAndDebugging::RequireUseWarnings]
severity = 5
#--------------------------------------------------------------
# I think these are less important, so only load when asked
[Variables::ProhibitPackageVars]
severity = 2
[ControlStructures::ProhibitPostfixControls]
allow = if unless # My custom configuration
severity = cruel # Same as "severity = 2"
#--------------------------------------------------------------
# Give these policies a custom theme. I can activate just
# these policies by saying "perlcritic -theme 'larry + curly'"
[Modules::RequireFilenameMatchesPackage]
add_themes = larry
[TestingAndDebugging::RequireTestLables]
add_themes = curly moe
#--------------------------------------------------------------
# I do not agree with these at all, so never load them
[-NamingConventions::ProhibitMixedCaseVars]
[-NamingConventions::ProhibitMixedCaseSubs]
#--------------------------------------------------------------
# For all other Policies, I accept the default severity,
# so no additional configuration is required for them.For additional configuration examples, see the perlcriticrc file that is included in this t/examples directory of this distribution.
THE POLICIES
A large number of Policy modules are distributed with Perl::Critic. They are described briefly in the companion document Perl::Critic::PolicySummary and in more detail in the individual modules themselves. Say "perlcritic -doc PATTERN" to see the perldoc for all Policy modules that match the regex m/PATTERN/imx
POLICY THEMES
Each Policy is defined with one or more "themes". Themes can be used to create arbitrary groups of Policies. They are intended to provide an alternative mechanism for selecting your preferred set of Policies. For example, you may wish disable a certain subset of Policies when analyzing test scripts. Conversely, you may wish to enable only a specific subset of Policies when analyzing modules.
The Policies that ship with Perl::Critic are have been broken into the following themes. This is just our attempt to provide some basic logical groupings. You are free to invent new themes that suit your needs.
THEME DESCRIPTION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
core All policies that ship with Perl::Critic
pbp Policies that come directly from "Perl Best Practices"
bugs Policies that that prevent or reveal bugs
maintenance Policies that affect the long-term health of the code
cosmetic Policies that only have a superficial effect
complexity Policies that specificaly relate to code complexity
security Policies that relate to security issues
tests Policies that are specific to test scriptsSay "perlcritic -list" to get a listing of all available policies and the themes that are associated with each one. You can also change the theme for any Policy in your .perlcriticrc file. See the "CONFIGURATION" section for more information about that.
Using the -theme command-line option, you can combine theme names with mathematical and boolean operators to create an arbitrarily complex expression that represents a custom "set" of Policies. The following operators are supported:
Operator Alternative Meaning
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
* and Intersection
- not Difference
+ or UnionOperator precedence is the same as that of normal mathematics. You can also use parenthesis to enforce precedence. Here are some examples:
Expression Meaning
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
pbp * bugs All policies that are "pbp" AND "bugs"
pbp and bugs Ditto
bugs + cosmetic All policies that are "bugs" OR "cosmetic"
bugs or cosmetic Ditto
pbp - cosmetic All policies that are "pbp" BUT NOT "cosmetic"
pbp not cosmetic Ditto
-maintenance All policies that are NOT "maintenance"
not maintenance Ditto
(pbp - bugs) * complexity All policies that are "pbp" BUT NOT "bugs",
AND "complexity"
(pbp not bugs) and complexity DittoTheme names are case-insensitive. If -theme is set to an empty string, then it is equivalent to the set of all Policies. A theme name that doesn't exist is equivalent to an empty set. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set for a discussion on set theory.
BENDING THE RULES
Perl::Critic takes a hard-line approach to your code: either you comply or you don't. In the real world, it is not always practical (or even possible) to fully comply with coding standards. In such cases, it is wise to show that you are knowingly violating the standards and that you have a Damn Good Reason (DGR) for doing so.
To help with those situations, you can direct Perl::Critic to ignore certain lines or blocks of code by using pseudo-pragmas:
require 'LegacyLibaray1.pl'; ## no critic
require 'LegacyLibrary2.pl'; ## no critic
for my $element (@list) {
## no critic
$foo = ""; #Violates 'ProhibitEmptyQuotes'
$barf = bar() if $foo; #Violates 'ProhibitPostfixControls'
#Some more evil code...
## use critic
#Some good code...
do_something($_);
}The "## no critic" comments direct Perl::Critic to ignore the remaining lines of code until the end of the current block, or until a "## use critic" comment is found (whichever comes first). If the "## no critic" comment is on the same line as a code statement, then only that line of code is overlooked. To direct perlcritic to ignore the "## no critic" comments, use the -force option.
A bare "## no critic" comment disables all the active Policies. If you wish to disable only specific Policies, add a list of Policy names as arguments just as you would for the "no strict" or "no warnings" pragma. For example, this would disable the ProhibitEmptyQuotes and ProhibitPostfixControls policies until the end of the block or until the next "## use critic" comment (whichever comes first):
## no critic (EmptyQuotes, PostfixControls);
# Now exempt from ValuesAndExpressions::ProhibitEmptyQuotes
$foo = "";
# Now exempt ControlStructures::ProhibitPostfixControls
$barf = bar() if $foo;
# Still subject to ValuesAndExpression::RequireNumberSeparators
$long_int = 10000000000;Since the Policy names are matched against the "## no critic" arguments as regular expressions, you can abbreviate the Policy names or disable an entire family of Policies in one shot like this:
## no critic (NamingConventions)
# Now exempt from NamingConventions::ProhibitMixedCaseVars
my $camelHumpVar = 'foo';
# Now exempt from NamingConventions::ProhibitMixedCaseSubs
sub camelHumpSub {}The argument list must be enclosed in parens and must contain one or more comma-separated barewords (i.e. don't use quotes). The "## no critic" pragmas can be nested, and Policies named by an inner pragma will be disabled along with those already disabled an outer pragma.
Use this feature wisely. "## no critic" should be used in the smallest possible scope, or only on individual lines of code. And you should always be as specific as possible about which policies you want to disable (i.e. never use a bare "## no critic"). If Perl::Critic complains about your code, try and find a compliant solution before resorting to this feature.
IMPORTANT CHANGES
Perl-Critic is evolving rapidly. As such, some of the interfaces have changed in ways that are not backward-compatible. If you have been using an older version of Perl-Critic and/or you have been developing custom Policy modules, please read this section carefully.
VERSION 0.21
In version 0.21, we introduced the concept of policy "themes". All you existing custom Policies should still be compatible. But to take advantage of the theme feature, you should add a default_themes method to your custom Policy modules. See Perl::Critic::DEVELOPER for an up-to-date guide on creating Policy modules.
VERSION 0.16
Starting in version 0.16, you can add a list Policy names as arguments to the "## no critic" pseudo-pragma. This feature allows you to disable specific policies. So if you have been in the habit of adding additional words after "no critic", then those words might cause unexpected results. If you want to append other stuff to the "## no critic" comment, then terminate the pseudo-pragma with a semi-colon, and then start another comment. For example:
#This may not work as expected.
$email = 'foo@bar.com'; ## no critic for literal '@'
#This will work.
$email = 'foo@bar.com'; ## no critic; #for literal '@'
#This is even better.
$email = 'foo@bar.com'; ## no critic (RequireInterpolation);VERSION 0.14
Starting in version 0.14, the interface to Perl::Critic::Violation changed. This will also break any custom Policy modules that you might have written for earlier modules. See Perl::Critic::DEVELOPER for an up-to-date guide on creating Policy modules.
The notion of "priority" was also replaced with "severity" in version 0.14. Consequently, the default behavior of Perl::Critic is to only load the most "severe" Policy modules, rather than loading all of them. This decision was based on user-feedback suggesting that Perl-Critic should be less "critical" for new users, and should steer them toward gradually increasing the strictness as they adopt better coding practices.
VERSION 0.11
Starting in version 0.11, the internal mechanics of Perl-Critic were rewritten so that only one traversal of the PPI document tree is required. Unfortunately, this will break any custom Policy modules that you might have written for earlier versions. Converting your policies to work with the new version is pretty easy and actually results in cleaner code. See Perl::Critic::DEVELOPER for an up-to-date guide on creating Policy modules.
EDITOR INTEGRATION
For ease-of-use, perlcritic can be integrated with your favorite text editor. The output-formatting capabilities of perlcritic are specifically intended for use with the "grep" or "compile" modes available in editors like emacs and vim. In these modes, you can run an arbitrary command and the editor will parse the output into an interactive buffer that you can click on and jump to the relevant line of code.
The Perl::Critic team thanks everyone who has helped integrate Perl-Critic with their favorite editor. Your contributions in particular have made Perl-Critic a convenient and user-friendly tool for Perl developers of all stripes. We sincerely appreciate your hard work.
EMACS
Joshua ben Jore has authored a minor-mode for emacs that allows you to run perlcritic on the current region or buffer. You can run it on demand, or configure it to run automatically when you save the buffer. The output appears in a hot-linked compiler buffer. The code and installation instructions can be found in the extras directory inside this distribution.
VIM
Configure the grep format as follows:
set grepformat=%f:%l:%c:m
set grepprg=perlcritic\ -verbose\ 1\ %Then, you can run perlcritic on the current buffer with:
:grepNavigation and display instructions can be found under :help grep. Someone with stronger Vim-fu may wish to convert this to a real macro.
gVIM
Fritz Mehner recently added support for perlcritic to his fantastic gVIM plugin. In addition to providing a very Perlish IDE, Fritz's plugin enables one-click access to perlcritic and many other very useful utilities. And all is seamlessly integrated into the editor. See http://lug.fh-swf.de/vim/vim-perl/screenshots-en.html for complete details.
EPIC
EPIC is an open source Perl IDE based on the Eclipse platform. Features supported are syntax highlighting, on-the-fly syntax check, content assist, perldoc support, source formatter, templating support and a Perl debugger. Go to http://e-p-i-c.sourceforge.net for more information about EPIC.
The EPIC team is currently working on integration with Perl::Critic. In the meantime, you can use the criticism pragma and EPIC will highlight violations whenever it does a syntax check on your code. I haven't tried this myself, but other folks say it works.
BBEdit
Josh Clark has produced an excellent Perl-Critic plugin for BBEdit. See http://beta.bigmedium.com/projects/bbedit-perl-critic/index.shtml for more information. Apple users rejoice!
EXIT STATUS
If perlcritic has any errors itself, exits with status == 1. If there are no errors, but perlcritic finds Policy violations in your source code, exits with status == 2. If there were no errors and no violations were found, exits with status == 0.
THE Perl::Critic PHILOSOPHY
Coding standards are deeply personal and highly subjective. The
goal of Perl::Critic is to help you write code that conforms with a
set of best practices. Our primary goal is not to dictate what
those practices are, but rather, to implement the practices
discovered by others. Ultimately, you make the rules --
Perl::Critic is merely a tool for encouraging consistency. If there
is a policy that you think is important or that we have overlooked,
we would be very grateful for contributions, or you can simply load
your own private set of policies into Perl::Critic.EXTENDING THE CRITIC
The modular design of Perl::Critic is intended to facilitate the addition of new Policies. You'll need to have some understanding of PPI, but most Policy modules are pretty straightforward and only require about 20 lines of code. Please see the Perl::Critic::DEVELOPER file included in this distribution for a step-by-step demonstration of how to create new Policy modules.
If you develop any new Policy modules, feel free to send them to thaljef@cpan.org and I'll be happy to put them into the Perl::Critic distribution. Or if you'd like to work on the Perl::Critic project directly, check out our repository at http://perlcritic.tigris.org. To subscribe to our mailing list, send a message to dev-subscribe@perlcritic.tigris.org.
BUGS
Scrutinizing Perl code is hard for humans, let alone machines. If you find any bugs, particularly false-positives or false-negatives from a Perl::Critic::Policy, please submit them to http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Perl-Critic. Thanks.
CREDITS
Adam Kennedy - For creating PPI, the heart and soul of Perl::Critic.
Damian Conway - For writing Perl Best Practices, finally :)
Chris Dolan - For contributing the best features and Policy modules.
Andy Lester - Wise sage and master of all-things-testing.
Elliot Shank - The self-proclaimed quality freak.
Giuseppe Maxia - For all the great ideas and positive encouragement.
and Sharon, my wife - For putting up with my all-night code sessions.
AUTHOR
Jeffrey Ryan Thalhammer <thaljef@cpan.org>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2005-2006 Jeffrey Ryan Thalhammer. All rights reserved.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. The full text of this license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module.