[drupal-devel] Checking coding style of contributed modules

[Dries Buytaert]

Moshe Weitzman wrote:
> it is quite possible that we don't have enough qualified developers with 
> enough time on their hands to perform code checking and functionality 
> checking for this. If you look at the patch queue, it is quite common 
> for *noone* to review a given patch, and we just let dries do it. i 
> would think that Contrib code would be even less worthy of review. I'm 
> not opposed to the 'door guard' arrangement, i am just skeptical that 
> people will do what they promised.

Right on.  I'm a True Believer of automation and self-organization (if 
possible).

If we'd have a 'code check' script -- even an extremely basic one -- I 
could install it on drupal.org and run the script once or twice a day on 
_each_ project in the contributions repository and link the report from 
the project pages.

For example, on the project page of the image module 
(http://drupal.org/project/image), there would be a link called 'View 
code report' that points to the image module's code report, generated by 
the script.

Of course, it is nothing like a real review and it might generate false 
positives but it could easily catch dozens of issues and encourage good 
coding style without manual intervention and within a few hours.  After 
all, it is easy enough to detect tabs, '} else' or the absence of '{}' 
in SQL queries.

-- 
Dries Buytaert  ::  http://www.buytaert.net/