Simian Documentation

Command Line Interface

Simian's command line interface allows you to run it from a shell, shell script, or batch file, scanning a directory for all files matching a pattern.

The general form for the Java version is: java -jar simian.jar [options] [files]

The files can be specified as any regular shell glob or simply a list of files and can be mixed with the -includes option. (See below for examples.)

For example, to find all java files in all sub-directories of the current directory: "**/*.java"

To find all java files in the current directory and set the threshold to 3: -threshold=3 "*.java"

To find all C# files in the current directory: "*.cs"

To find all C and header in all sub-directories of the current directory: **/*.c **/*.h

To find all java files in two different directories: "/dir1/*.java" "/dir2/*.java"

To find all java files in all sub-directories, excluding Test classes: -includes=**/*.java -excludes=**/*Test.java

To find all java files in the current directory and ignore numbers: -ignoreNumbers "*.java"

To find all Ruby files and display the results in xml format: -formatter=xml "*.rb"

To find all Ruby files and sends the results in emacs compatible format to a file: -formatter=emacs:c:\temp\simian.log "*.rb"

To read configuration from a file (where each line of the file specifies at most one of any of the valid command-line arguments): -config=simian.config

Notes

The default VM size seems to be adequate for most projects. If you encounter the following error you will need to increase the VM heap size using the -mx JVM option.

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError

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Gradle Task

This method allows you to integrate Simian with Gradle Build Tool, an open source build system for Java, Android, and Kotlin development environments.

The following examples show neccessary steps to use Simian for checking code duplication in a Java project.
Note: Adjust the path of Simian jar to suit your environment. It is recommended to host the jar in a Maven repo instead of a local folder shown here.

Add Simian to the list of dependencies in your build.gradle.kts file:

dependencies {
    ...
    implementation("simian:simian:4.0.0")
    ...
}

Define a simianCheck task to run the checker. For all defaults:

tasks.register<JavaExec>("simianCheck") {

    val inclFiles = sourceSets["main"].java.srcDirs.map { "-includes=${it.path}/**/*.java" }

    mainClass.set("-jar")
    args(layout.projectDirectory.file("libs/simian-4.0.0.jar").asFile.absolutePath,
         *inclFiles.toTypedArray(),
    )
}

To exclude test classes if they exists in the same tree as the source:

    val exclFiles = sourceSets["main"].java.srcDirs.map { "-excludes=${it.path}/**/*Test.java" }
    args(layout.projectDirectory.file("libs/simian-4.0.0.jar").asFile.absolutePath,
         *inclFiles.toTypedArray(),
         *exclFiles.toTypedArray(),
    )

To change the minimum number of lines that is considered a match:

    ...
    args(layout.projectDirectory.file("libs/simian-4.0.0.jar").asFile.absolutePath,
         *inclFiles.toTypedArray(),
         "-threshold=6",
    )

To force the language used for processing:

    ...
    args(layout.projectDirectory.file("libs/simian-4.0.0.jar").asFile.absolutePath,
         "-includes=path/to/sources/**/*.*",
         "-language=java",
    )

To have the build fail one or more matches are found:

    ...
    args(layout.projectDirectory.file("libs/simian-4.0.0.jar").asFile.absolutePath,
         "-includes=path/to/sources/**/*.*",
         "-failOnDuplication",
    )

To set a build property if one or more matches are found:

    ...
    args(layout.projectDirectory.file("libs/simian-4.0.0.jar").asFile.absolutePath,
         "-includes=path/to/sources/**/*.*",
         "-failureProperty=test.failure",
    )

By default, Simian produces output in plain text. You can override this by using the nested formatter element. The formatter takes a type (either "plain"; "xml"; "emacs"; "vs"; or "yaml") and an optional filename (toFile). For example, to send output to a file:

    ...
    args(layout.projectDirectory.file("libs/simian-4.0.0.jar").asFile.absolutePath,
         "-includes=path/to/sources/**/*.*",
         "-formatter=plain:simian-log.txt",
    )

To produce XML output:

    ...
    args(layout.projectDirectory.file("libs/simian-4.0.0.jar").asFile.absolutePath,
         "-includes=path/to/sources/**/*.*",
         "-formatter=xml:simian-log.xml",
    )

You may specify any number of formatter elements allowing you to produce both XML and plain text output if necessary.