Reviewing code automatically

An automated code review is a development feature that applies a set of rules to a code base to validate compliance with best development practices and software engineering guidelines. Rules are grouped based on a particular aspect of quality (for example globalization) or severity (for example the Quick code review looks for serious problems only). The reviewed code base can be the workspace, a project, or an individual Java file.

You run a code review by clicking the Run icon in the Code Review view. The results of rule violations, called findings, are presented to the user as a list of findings with the full path name of the file and line number. Software architects and developers review the list of findings to determine how to refactor the code.

The code review feature automates the typical manual process of reviewing code, performed by a software developer or architect to review code. While the manual code review process can consist of time-consuming and subjective discussions, the automated code review is effective, quick, and consistent. The automated code review supplements the manual code review, but it does not replace it.

To perform an automated code review:
  1. Open the Code Review view.
  2. Select a code review to run.
  3. Define the scope of code review.
  4. Run the code review.
  5. Work with the code review findings.
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