Java tool for validating apache velocity templates

Purpose

Simple validation tool for detecting bugs in Apache Velocity templates. It iterates through directories and validates every .vm file. Errors are printed with filename, error and possible solutions.

Usage

java -jar velocityvalidator.jar path_to_templates [-rules=path_to_config_file] [-verbose]

• path_to_tempates = root directory, where starts detection of templates, it will crawl recursive thru whole subtree of directories
• path_to_config_file = not mandatory, file, on every line new java regular expression of illegal input. For example #foreach(.* as .*) . Correct one is #foreach(.* in .*)

Examples of incorrect templates

###IncorrectVariableName.vm

###UTF-8

## illegal exclamation mark at end of variable
${variable!}

###TwoEndBlocksTemplate.vm

###UTF-8

#if($variable)
#end

## one more end, with no opening tag
#end

###UnfinishedBlockTemplate.vm

###UTF-8

#if($variable)

    $variable
## commented out end
## #end

Validation output

Run command in directory with templates mentioned above:

java -jar bin/velocityvalidator-0.1.1.jar .

And output should look like:

Error in file /mnt/raid/home/dvorak/examples/./IncorrectVariableName.vm
    org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.TemplateParseException: Encountered "!}\n" at /mnt/raid/home/dvorak/examples/./IncorrectVariableName.vm[line 3, column 11]
    Was expecting one of:
        "}" ...
        <DOT> ...
        
Error in file /mnt/raid/home/dvorak/examples/./TwoEndBlocksTemplate.vm
    org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.TemplateParseException: Encountered "#end\n" at /mnt/raid/home/dvorak/examples/./TwoEndBlocksTemplate.vm[line 5, column 1]
    Was expecting one of:
        <EOF> 
        "(" ...
        <RPAREN> ...
        <ESCAPE_DIRECTIVE> ...
        <SET_DIRECTIVE> ...
        "##" ...
        "\\\\" ...
        "\\" ...
        <TEXT> ...
        "*#" ...
        "*#" ...
        <STRING_LITERAL> ...
        <IF_DIRECTIVE> ...
        <STOP_DIRECTIVE> ...
        <INTEGER_LITERAL> ...
        <FLOATING_POINT_LITERAL> ...
        <WORD> ...
        <BRACKETED_WORD> ...
        <IDENTIFIER> ...
        <DOT> ...
        "{" ...
        "}" ...
        
Error in file /mnt/raid/home/dvorak/examples/./UnfinishedBlockTemplate.vm
    org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.TemplateParseException: Encountered "<EOF>" at /mnt/raid/home/dvorak/examples/./UnfinishedBlockTemplate.vm[line 7, column 8]
    Was expecting one of:
        "(" ...
        <RPAREN> ...
        <ESCAPE_DIRECTIVE> ...
        <SET_DIRECTIVE> ...
        "##" ...
        "\\\\" ...
        "\\" ...
        <TEXT> ...
        "*#" ...
        "*#" ...
        <STRING_LITERAL> ...
        <END> ...
        <IF_DIRECTIVE> ...
        <ELSEIF_DIRECTIVE> ...
        <ELSE_DIRECTIVE> ...
        <STOP_DIRECTIVE> ...
        <INTEGER_LITERAL> ...
        <FLOATING_POINT_LITERAL> ...
        <WORD> ...
        <BRACKETED_WORD> ...
        <IDENTIFIER> ...
        <DOT> ...
        "{" ...
        "}" ...
        
Done, Found 3 errors

How to build project

This project is based on Maven. You will need to have installed JDK and Maven. Then simply run mvn package and in project directory target/dist will be created jar with validator. Directory target/dist/lib contains all project dependencies.