How to Use Closure Linter js

This document describes how to install and use Closure Linter.

Install Closure Linter

Use the Python easy_install utility to download and install Closure Linter.

Linux

To install Closure Linter on Linux, execute the following commands:

$ cd /tmp
/tmp$ sudo easy_install http://closure-linter.googlecode.com/files/closure_linter-latest.tar.gz

Mac OS X

To install Closure Linter on Mac OS X, execute the following command:

$ sudo easy_install http://closure-linter.googlecode.com/files/closure_linter-latest.tar.gz

Windows

To install Closure Linter on Windows:

1. Download and install Python for Windows.
2. Install the Easy Install module.
3. Execute the following command:

> easy_install http://closure-linter.googlecode.com/files/closure_linter-latest.tar.gz

Note: Windows support for Closure Linter is experimental.

Find Style Problems

To run the Closure Linter on a single file, try:

$ gjslint path/to/my/file.js

You should see results like this:

Line 46, E:0110: Line too long (87 characters).
Line 54, E:0214: Missing description in @return tag
Line 66, E:0012: Illegal semicolon after function declaration
Line 150, E:0120: Binary operator should go on previous line "+"
Line 175, E:0011: Missing semicolon after function assigned to a variable
Line 210, E:0121: Illegal comma at end of array literal
Line 220, E:0002: Missing space before ":"

You can also recursively check an entire directory, like this:

$ gjslint -r path/to/my/directory

By default, the Closure Linter checks for the presence of correct JsDoc annotations. If you don't want to check for missing JsDoc annotations in your project, disable the check like this:

$ gjslint --nojsdoc -r path/to/my/directory

Although this flag disables checks for missing JsDoc annotations, the linter still verifies that existing JsDoc annotations are used correctly.

The --strict Flag

If you want Closure Linter to be more strict about style rules like spacing, JsDoc types, and author tags, use the --strict command line flag. You must use --strict if you are contributing code to the Closure Library.

Fix Style Problems

In any of the above commands, you can substitute fixjsstyle for gjslint to automatically fix many of the errors that gjslint checks for.

For example:

$ fixjsstyle path/to/file1.js path/to/file2.js

You should back up your files or store them in a source control system before using fixjsstyle, in case the script makes changes that you don't want.

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Last updated February 8, 2013.