Thursday, December 02, 2004

Have IDEA mark all qualifying variables as final

I finally figured out a trick with IDEA that I've been searching for for more than a year now. I like to mark all qualifying variables as final when I work in Java. I used to strip final as noise, but was convinced by Chapter 2[PDF] of Hardcore Java that final is a fine thing and good coding practice.

But back to IntelliJ IDEA. Marking all qualifying variables as final is a real pain. Why not have the editor do it for me? I certainly can flag unmarked variables with warnings (Settings|Errors|Local Code Analysis|Local variable or parameter can be final).

To have the editor mark all qualifying variables globally as final, run the analysis tool on a file or your whole project with Analyze|Inspect code...|Local Code Analysis|Local variable or parameter can be final, then Run.

When the results return, the left pane displays analysis problems. Expand the Local Code Analysis node, select the Local variable or parameter can be final node underneath, and push the "lightbulb" (Apply a quickfix) button. This fixes the problem for all qualifying variables all in one go. Wonderful!

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