findbugs-maven-plugin ignores the configuration inside the <execution> node

[rainbow702]

The following is my project structure:

|-- etc
|   `-- excludeFilter.xml
|-- pom.xml
|-- src
|   |-- main
|   |   |-- java
|   |   |   `-- org
|   |   |       `-- rainbow
|   |   |           `-- test
|   |   |               `-- BugController.java
|   |   `-- resources
|   `-- test
|       `-- java

The content of BugController.java is:

package org.rainbow.test;

public class BugController {
    public void test() {
        int a = 1 / 0;
    }
}

The pom.xml is like the following at the beginning:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>org.rainbow</groupId>
    <artifactId>fb-test</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>

    <packaging>jar</packaging>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
                <artifactId>findbugs-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.0.4</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>check</id>
                        <phase>compile</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>check</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>

Then, I ran the command:

mvn clean compile

Obviously, the findbugs failed, and it printed out the reason:

[INFO] Dead store to a in org.rainbow.test.BugController.test() [org.rainbow.test.BugController] At BugController.java:[line 5] DLS_DEAD_LOCAL_STORE

Then, I wanted to ignore this bug. After reading the Filter File Doc, I just wrote the following exclude-file (named excludeFilter.xml, showed in the project structure):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<FindBugsFilter>
    <Match>
        <Class name="~.*"/>   <!-- ignore all bug warnings -->
    </Match>
</FindBugsFilter>

And I added a configuration to the plugin execution as following:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>findbugs-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.0.4</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <configuration>
                <effort>default</effort>
                <failOnError>true</failOnError>
                <excludeFilterFile>${project.basedir}/etc/excludeFilter.xml</excludeFilterFile>
            </configuration>
            <id>check</id>
            <phase>compile</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>check</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

Then I ran the command again:

mvn clean compile

I thought the bug should be ignored, but unfortunately, it was still there.

And then I ran the command again with -X option to see the detail:

mvn clean compile -X

The following is a snippet from the output of the above command:

[INFO] --- findbugs-maven-plugin:3.0.4:check (check) @ fb-test ---
[DEBUG] Configuring mojo org.codehaus.mojo:findbugs-maven-plugin:3.0.4:check from plugin realm ClassRealm[plugin>org.codehaus.mojo:findbugs-maven-plugin:3.0.4, parent: sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader@d16e5d6]
[DEBUG] Configuring mojo 'org.codehaus.mojo:findbugs-maven-plugin:3.0.4:check' with basic configurator -->
[DEBUG]   (s) classFilesDirectory = /home/rainbow/workspace/study/fb-test/target/classes
[DEBUG]   (s) compileSourceRoots = [/home/rainbow/workspace/study/fb-test/src/main/java]
[DEBUG]   (s) debug = false
[DEBUG]   (s) effort = default
[DEBUG]   (s) excludeFilterFile = /home/rainbow/workspace/study/fb-test/etc/excludeFilter.xml
[DEBUG]   (s) failOnError = true
[DEBUG]   (s) findbugsXmlOutput = true
[DEBUG]   (s) findbugsXmlOutputDirectory = /home/rainbow/workspace/study/fb-test/target
[DEBUG]   (s) fork = true
[DEBUG]   (s) includeTests = false
[DEBUG]   (s) localRepository =       id: local

We can see that the check execution goal got the configuration excludeFilterFile, but it still printed out the bug:

[DEBUG] Executing findbugs:check
[DEBUG] Here goes...............Executing findbugs:check
[INFO] BugInstance size is 1
[INFO] Error size is 0
[INFO] Total bugs: 1
[INFO] Dead store to a in org.rainbow.test.BugController.test() [org.rainbow.test.BugController] At BugController.java:[line 5] DLS_DEAD_LOCAL_STORE
[INFO] 

And at last, I tried to move the configuration to be outside of the execution node, as following:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>findbugs-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.0.4</version>
    <configuration>
        <effort>default</effort>
        <failOnError>true</failOnError>
        <excludeFilterFile>${project.basedir}/etc/excludeFilter.xml</excludeFilterFile>
    </configuration>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <id>check</id>
            <phase>compile</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>check</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

And the plugin worked fine, and the bug was ignored.

So, my question is: Is the way of configuration I tried a bug? Or, I misconfigured something? Or, I misunderstood the configuration of maven plugin?

[rainbow702]

I found an explanation from guide-configuring-plugins:

Note: 
Configurations inside the <executions> tag differ from those that are outside <executions> in that they cannot be used from a direct command line invocation.
Instead they are only applied when the lifecycle phase they are bound to are invoked. 
Alternatively, if you move a configuration section outside of the executions section,
it will apply globally to all invocations of the plugin.

But I think the command mvn clean compile does not match the case of 'direct command line invocation'.