CheckStyle EmptyBlock rule doesn't work

Question

I am using CheckStyle and the rule for EmptyBlock seems to be not working. I got an empty else if{//ignore} block and based on the documentation the following rule should work but it is not.

<module name="EmptyBlock">
      <property name="tokens" value="LITERAL_DEFAULT"/>
</module>

Am I doing anything wrong?

Answer 1

  <property name="tokens" value="LITERAL_DEFAULT"/> 

You are disabling if blocks by specifying the LITERAL_DEFAULT with no other tokens. LITERAL_IF is an optional token as defined in the Properties section at http://checkstyle.sourceforge.net/config_blocks.html#EmptyBlock . When you specify a list of tokens, you are disabling all other optional tokens you don't write in.

Use something like <property name="tokens" value="LITERAL_IF, LITERAL_DEFAULT"/> to produce a violation on if (condition) {} .