Auto-fixing

DocbookCS can automatically fix violations. Pass --fix and every violation whose sniff ships a fixer is corrected in place:

# Fix the whole tree
docbook-cs . --fix

# Fix only what you changed
git diff HEAD | docbook-cs --fix

# Fix changed files plus all XML they reference
git diff HEAD | docbook-cs --wide --fix

Experimental

Auto-fixing is experimental. Run it on a clean working tree so you can review the changes with git diff and revert if needed.

All built-in sniffs ship a fixer. Fixing respects the same scope rules as sniffing: only violations inside the given diff or paths are fixed.

How it works

Fixes are applied in one or more fixing passes: after a pass, the files are re-sniffed, and if fixes enabled new fixes (or conflicting fixes were skipped), another pass runs. Fixes that cannot be applied safely are counted as skipped and the underlying violation is reported as remaining.

Reporting

The console report summarises the outcome:

OK -- 1 file(s) scanned, no violations remaining.
Total runtime: 2.000s

FIXING
----------------------------------------
 Files changed                            1
 Fixes applied                            2
 Fixes skipped                            0
 Fixing passes                            1

Violations that remain after fixing are listed as usual and reported as REMAINING.

The JSON report (--report=json) contains the same numbers in a fixing block:

"fixing": {
    "files_changed": 1,
    "fixes_applied": 2,
    "fixes_skipped": 0,
    "fixing_passes": 1
}

The Checkstyle report is unchanged: it only lists remaining violations.

With --perf, the performance table breaks down runtime per sniff for both sniffing and fixing:

PERFORMANCE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                       Sniffing           Fixing
 DocbookCS.Simpara             1.000s ( 50.0%)  0.500s ( 25.0%)
 DocbookCS.ExceptionName       0.250s ( 12.5%)

Exit code

With --fix, the exit code reflects the violations remaining after fixing: 0 when everything was fixed, 1 when violations remain.

Custom sniffs

Your own sniffs can opt into fixing by implementing the Fixable interface — see Writing a custom sniff.