Regex to find static (non final) variables

Question

I am trying to do a search in my Eclipse (Java) workspace to find all instances of static variables that are not final.

I tried various regex's but they do not result in any matches. Can someone suggest a regex that will match all lines containing 'static' and not containing 'final', and not ending in a '{'

The last part about not ending with a '{' will eliminate static methods.

An example

public class FlagOffendingStatics {
  private static String shouldBeFlagged = "not ok";
  private static final String ok = "this is fine";
  public static void methodsAreOK() {

  }
}

-- Thanks Parag

Answer 1

Eclipse should have some sort of Java search built-in where you could specify that... Else, instead of writing one large monster regexp, try chaining together a bunch of greps:

grep -r static . | grep -v final

in the 1st statement, the -r causes the grep to recurse over a directory tree starting at the local directory, the results get piped to the 2nd grep which removes all the final's. Keep adding -v until everything superfluous is removed from the results. This is usually easier --albeit less elegant-- than figuring out a complicated regexp to take care of everything.

Answer 2

Can you post a quick block of sample data for testing; I think I know what you're asking but I'm not sure.

Answer 3

FindBugs will find static non-final variables for you. (Along with many other interesting things.) I've had good results with using the standalone version. There is also an Eclipse plugin, but I haven't used that.

Answer 4

This pattern works:

[^(final)] static [^(final)][^(\})]*$

Here is a test:

$ cat test.txt
private int x = "3";
private static x = "3";
private final static String x = "3";
private static final String x = "3";
private static String x = "3";
public static void main(String args[]) {
        blah;
}

$ grep "[^(final)] static [^(final)][^(\})]*$" test.txt
private static x = "3";
private static String x = "3";

(I realize that private static x = "3"; isn't valid syntax, but the pattern still holds ok.)

The pattern accounts for the fact that final can appear before or after static with [^(final)] static [^(final)]. The rest of the pattern, [^(\})]*$, is meant to prevent any { characters from appearing in the remainder of the line.

This pattern will not work however if anyone likes to write their method statements like this:

private static void blah()
{
     //hi!
}

Answer 5

One of the IntelliJ code inspections already does this. You can actually run the code inspector stand alone if you want and have it generate a report (usefull for a nightly build).

As the previous poster said, Find Bugs will do this and I imagine other code inspection tools will do it as well. You're probably better off integrating one of those more complete code inspection tools rather than a one-off script just for this one thing.

Answer 6

Instead of checking for the absence of a brace, I would look for a semicolon at the end:

^(?!.*\bfinal\b).*\bstatic\b.*;[ \t]*$

Answer 7

This isn't a regex, but here is a plugin called checkstyle that will do that for you, as well as many other source checks. It even fixes many problems it finds automatically.

http://eclipse-cs.sourceforge.net/update/