Configuring Rule Sets

This section explains about Rule Sets and describes the procedure for creating and editing Rule Sets. It discusses the following topics:

What Are Rule Sets?

A Rule Set is of a set of parameters that the Globalyzer scanner uses to detect internationalization errors and generate error reports.

The rules are divided into two categories: Detection Rules and Filter Rules.

Detection Rules

Detection Rules specify internationalization error conditions that the Globalyzer source code scanner will detect and report to you. Some rules such as the rules that are used to detect string literals embedded in your source code are fixed and can only be altered by the Globalyzer server administrator. Most detection categories are accessible to Globalyzer users for altering, adding to and deleting. Those categories of rules are described here.

Locale Sensitive Methods

The Locale Sensitive Methods category includes rules used to detect method calls, functions, and constructors in your source that are potentially unsafe within certain locales and for certain character encodings. These rules can be individually selected or deselected but can't be altered. This category is available only for Java, C++, C# and VB. An example of such a rule is Java's lang.String.ToLowerCase() method. This signature draws upon the rules of the default locale to convert a string to lower case. The rules of the default locale would not be correct for languages in all locales, some of which do not have a lower-case mode to their alphabets.

Note: When Globalyzer scans code for locale-sensitve methods, the HTML Summary Report generated by Globalyzer includes links for all detected locale-sensitive methods. The link takes you to information about how to refactor or replace the detected method to make your code function properly across all locales and character encodings.

Image References

Another detection category is the Image References category. The user can add to, delete from, and alter this category of rules . This category is used to detect image file paths in source code. During the internationalization process, image files need to be localized and placed in locale-specific directories. All paths to those image files in the source code must then be altered to retrieve the localized image at run time from the locale-specific directory corresponding to the user's locale.

Source File Extensions

A very basic detection category is the Source File Extensions category. This category of rules can be also be added to, deleted from and altered by the user. As the name suggests, this category simply tells Globalyzer which source files to scan if you point it at an entire directory of source files.

General Patterns

Users can alter, add to and delete from the General Patterns category, which can include any regular expression that the user wants the scanner to look for during the scan. This might include patterns used to enforce coding standards or anything at all -- not necessarily internationalization-related patterns.

Ignored HTML Tags

Finally, for HTML projects only, users will see the Ignored HTML Tags category. This category requires special explanation and has a section dedicated to it. Please read this section if you intend to customize this Rule Set category.

Filter Rules

Filter Rules specify conditions that the scanner will overlook. For instance, by default, Globalyzer detects embedded strings. Embedded string detection is a fixed part of each Rule Set that you create (you cannot edit the embedded string rules). However, some strings embedded in your code are not intended for display to an end user and hence, should not be included in Globalyzer's reports listing strings that need to be externalized for translation.

String Literal Filters

Embedded strings that shouldn't be externalized may be programmatic elements or debug messages printed to the console. Globalyzer provides several ways to filter such strings from your errors reports. The first way is to specify a pattern, which if Globalyzer detects within a string literal, will cause Globalyzer to ignore that string. This mechanism is called String Literal Filters.

String Method Filters

The second mechanism for filtering strings is called String Method Filters. Your code likely contains many method or functions that are passed string arguments. When you are sure that any string passed into function X is never displayed to the user, you can specify that function name within the String Method Filters list and whenever Globalyzer sees that a string literal is passed as an argument to any of the methods, functions, or constructors in this list, it will ignore those strings.

For example, the Java method:

    javax.servlet.http.HTTPServletRequest.getParameter(String s)

takes a string argument, but this string would never appear as text visible to an end user. Therefore, if you add this method (method name only) to the list of Method Filter Rules, Globalyzer will ignore any string literal passed in.

String Line Filters

A final mechanism for filtering strings is called String Line Filters. In the case where there are strings that will never be displayed to the user and reside in lines of code that share a specific string pattern, you can add that pattern to the String Line Filters list. Whenever Globalyzer detects string literals in a line of code that also contains one of the patterns in this list, it will ignore those strings.

For example, suppose you have several strings defined that are used only in conditionally compiled debug code:

    String szName = "Name";  // Debug
    String szStart = "Start";// Debug
    String szEnd = "End";    // Debug
    String szTime = "Time";  // Debug

Since these are all common words, it would be difficult to eliminate them from the embedded string report using String Literal Filters. However, since each line of code also contains the comment Debug, we can add that shared pattern to the String Line Filters list. Now, when Globalyzer scans for string literals, it will find a matching pattern in the String Line Filters list for these four lines, and thus filter the four string literals from the embedded string report.

Logging In to the Server

Rule Sets must be configured on the Globalyzer server, using a browser. The first step is to log in to your account on the server. Click here for detailed login instructions.

Creating New Rule Sets

To create a new Rule Set:

  1. Log in to the server, as described previously.

  2. From your home page, select Create Rule Set. The Create a New I18N Rule Set page appears.

  3. Enter a name for the new Rule Set.

  4. From the Select Source Type list, pick the type of source code that you wish to scan. The choices are: C#, C++, HTML, JavaScript, Perl, Java, Visual Basic, and VBScript.

  5. Click the Submit button.

  6. In the case of C++, an additional page appears for you to choose the context for the C/C++.

    7. There a five supported C++ programming language contexts:

      ANSI UTF-8
      ANSI UTF-16
      Windows Generic
      Windows MBCS
      Windows Unicode

    The context determines the default set of Unsafe Methods for the Rule Set. Click here for details.

    Click the Submit button.

  7. The Configure I18N Rule Set page appears.

    8. This page allows you to edit the default settings for four Detection Rules and three Filter Rules. Click on a link below for detailed information about configuring each type of rule:

Detection Rules

Configure Source File Extensions
Choose from a list of file extensions to determine what types of files will be scanned within a chosen project directory.

Configure Locale Sensitive (Unsafe) Methods
Choose from a list of default unsafe methods to be identified in the code scan.

Configure Ignored HTML Tags
Choose from and add to a list of tags that are ignored by the HTML scanner when searching for text embedded between matching tags.

Configure Image References
Choose from and add to a list of default image references to identify in the code scan.

Configure General Pattern Matches
Choose from and add to a list of pattern matches to include in the code scan.

Filter Rules

Configure Literal String Filters
Choose from and add to a list of default strings to filter out of the code scan.

Configure String Method Filters
Choose from and add to a list of methods to filter out of the code scan.

Configure String Line Filters
Choose from and add to a list of default patterns to filter code lines out of embedded string code scan.

 

Editing Rule Sets

To edit an existing Rule Set:

  1. Log in to the server, as described previously.

  2. From your home page, select View My Rule Sets. The All My Rule Sets page appears.

  3. In the All My Rule Sets page, click the Edit button next to the Rule Set you wish to edit. For example:

    4. The Configure I18N Rule Set page appears. This page allows you to edit the current settings for four Detection Rules and three Filter Rules. Click on a link below for detailed information about configuring each type of rule:

Detection Rules

Configure Source File Extensions
Choose from a list of file extensions to determine what types of files will be scanned within a chosen project directory.

Configure Locale Sensitive (Unsafe) Methods
Choose from a list of default unsafe methods to be identified in the code scan.

Configure Image References
Choose from and add to a list of default image references to identify in the code scan.

Configure General Pattern Matches
Choose from and add to a list of pattern matches to include in the code scan.

Filter Rules

Configure Literal String Filters
Choose from and add to a list of default strings to filter out of the code scan.

Configure String Method Filters
Choose from and add to a list of methods to filter out of the code scan.

Configure String Line Filters
Choose from and add to a list of default patterns to filter code lines out of embedded string code scan.

 

Creating a Project File for a Rule Set

After you log into the Globalyzer Client, and before you start scanning with a new Rule Set, you'll want to create a Project file to store the name of your new Rule Set, along with all your scan configuration settings. This allows you to easily store and retrieve scan configurations prior to running or rerunning a particular source code scan.

To see that name of the Project file that is currently loaded, look at the Project field in the Project Settings panel in the lower left corner of the main Globalyzer window. Initially, before a Project file has been created, the "defaultProject" is the current Project.

To create a new Project:

Select File=>New Project... from the Main menu.

Click here for information on the New Project dialog. Once created, the Project Settings panel will update the current Project to the one you've created. For example, if you named your Project "Example_java", you would see:

With the creation of a new Project, you're ready to select a Rule Set for your scan and make any other scan configuration changes via the Project Properties dialog box. Note that the scan configuration changes that you make will automatically update the current Project file. That's why it's important to create new Project files prior to making changes to the Project Properites dialog box.

 

Selecting a Rule Set to Use with a Scan

Before you perform a source code scan, you must be sure the correct Rule Set is selected in the Globalyzer client's Project Properties dialog box.

Tip: The currently selected Rule Set is shown in the Current Globalyzer Project Settings panel in the lower left corner of the main Globalyzer window.

To change the current Rule Set, open the Project Properties dialog by doing one of the following:

Click the Edit button in the Current Globalyzer Project Settings panel.

Select Edit=>Project Properties from the Main menu.

Select the Project Properties button in the Button Bar.

In the Project Properties dialog, click the Scanning Tab, and then the Rules Tab. Any Rule Sets you defined on the server appear on the drop-down list. Select the Rule Set you wish to use.

Click here for information on setting other scan configurations in the Project Properties dialog box.

Copying Rule Sets

To copy an existing Rule Set:

  1. Log in to the server, as described previously.

  2. From your home page, select View My Rule Sets. The All My Rule Sets page appears.

  3. In the All My Rule Sets page, click the Save As button next to the Rule Set you wish to copy. For example:

  4. Give the new Rule Set a name in the Copy Rule Set page, and click the Save button.

Deleting Rule Sets

To delete an existing Rule Set:

  1. Log in to the server, as described previously.

  2. From your home page, select View My Rule Sets. The All My Rule Sets page appears.

  3. In the All My Rule Sets page, click the Delete button next to the Rule Set you wish to edit. For example:

  4. In the Delete Rule Set page, click the Delete button to confirm the operation.

 

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