PHP_CodeSniffer and JavaScript Lint

The new JavaScript tokenizer in PHP_CodeSniffer allows you to write your own custom JS sniffs, but JavaScript Lint already has a set of generic tests that can be applied to your code. Thanks to the JavaScript Lint command line tool, jsl, you can now include JavaScript Lint warnings and errors in your coding standards.

I've just committed the JavaScriptLint sniff into the Squiz standard under a new Debug category. The sniff requires you to have jsl installed on the same machine as PHP_CodeSniffer and you need to tell PHP_CodeSniffer where to find it.

$ phpcs --config-set jsl_path /path/to/jsl
$ phpcs --standard=squiz /path/to/file.js

JavaScript Lint checks for a number of common errors, including missing semi-colons and unused code. Like the Zend CodeAnalyzer sniff, not all errors and warnings need fixing, so all messages reported by jsl are warnings within PHP_CodeSniffer and can be hidden easily.