8.3.5 Word lists

To check model element names for keywords, we define a list of keywords in the metric definition file, and add a rule that checks for names on the list:

<wordlist name="CPP" ignorecase="false" > 
  <entry word="auto" />
  <entry word="bool" />
  <entry word="break" />
  ...
</wordlist>

...

<rule name="Keyword" domain="class" category="Naming" severity="1-high">
  <description>Class name is a reserved C++ keyword.</description>
  <violation condition="name onlist CPP" value="name" />
</rule>

The word list contains a list of entry elements. An entry has one required attribute word that contains one word of the list.

To check if a word is on a list, there is a special operator onlist which you can use in condition expressions (see Section 8.5.4 "Condition Expressions"). In the condition expression of rule "Keyword" above, the left hand operator yields the name of the class, the right hand operator is the name of the word list to check.

Note that while the main purpose of the word list feature is to define design rules checking for keywords, there are other possible uses:

• Your development standards may forbid certain classes or data types to be used as types of attributes, parameters, return types, etc. To define a rule that checks adherence to this standard, create a word list with the names of the forbidden types, and then create rules to check if the name of an attribute type etc. appears on the list.
• Word lists can also be used to simplify condition expressions of set or metric definitions. A condition of the form val='string1'|val='string2'|...|val='stringn') can be rewritten: define a word list containing the strings string1 to stringn, and reduce the condition expression to val onlist wordlist.