Generating source references with the Maven JXR plugin

You may have observed the following warnings when running the PMD or Checkstyle plugin:

[INFO] --- maven-pmd-plugin:3.2:pmd (default-cli) @ project-with-violations ---
[WARNING] Unable to locate Source XRef to link to – DISABLED
[INFO] --- maven-checkstyle-plugin:2.13:checkstyle (default-cli) @ project-with-violations ---
[INFO]
[INFO] There are 36 checkstyle errors.
[WARNING] Unable to locate Source XRef to link to – DISABLED

The plugins attempt to link the violation to the specific lines in the cross-reference of the source. As they are unable to find this cross-reference, they display the warning.

To generate this cross-reference, we need to use the Maven JXR plugin.

How to do it...

Use the following steps to generate source references with the Maven JXR plugin:

1. Open the project for which you want to run the cross-reference.

2. Run the following Maven command:

   mvn jxr:jxr
   

3. Observe the output:

   [INFO]
   [INFO] --- maven-jxr-plugin:2.5:jxr (default...