grunt-contrib-jshint

What is grunt-contrib-jshint?

grunt-contrib-jshint is a Grunt plugin for running JSHint, a tool that helps to detect errors and potential problems in JavaScript code. It allows you to integrate JSHint into your Grunt build process, enabling automated code quality checks.

What are grunt-contrib-jshint's main functionalities?

Basic JSHint Task

This feature allows you to define a basic JSHint task in your Gruntfile. It specifies the files to be linted and sets JSHint options, such as ECMAScript version.

{
  "grunt.initConfig": {
    "jshint": {
      "files": ['Gruntfile.js', 'src/**/*.js', 'test/**/*.js'],
      "options": {
        "esversion": 6
      }
    }
  },
  "grunt.loadNpmTasks": "grunt-contrib-jshint",
  "grunt.registerTask": ["default", ["jshint"]]
}

Custom JSHint Reporter

This feature allows you to use a custom reporter for JSHint, such as 'jshint-stylish', to format the output of linting results in a more readable manner.

{
  "grunt.initConfig": {
    "jshint": {
      "files": ['Gruntfile.js', 'src/**/*.js', 'test/**/*.js'],
      "options": {
        "reporter": require('jshint-stylish')
      }
    }
  },
  "grunt.loadNpmTasks": "grunt-contrib-jshint",
  "grunt.registerTask": ["default", ["jshint"]]
}

JSHint with Custom Configuration File

This feature allows you to specify a custom JSHint configuration file (.jshintrc) to define your linting rules and options.

{
  "grunt.initConfig": {
    "jshint": {
      "files": ['Gruntfile.js', 'src/**/*.js', 'test/**/*.js'],
      "options": {
        "jshintrc": '.jshintrc'
      }
    }
  },
  "grunt.loadNpmTasks": "grunt-contrib-jshint",
  "grunt.registerTask": ["default", ["jshint"]]
}

Other packages similar to grunt-contrib-jshint

eslint

ESLint is a popular linting tool for JavaScript and TypeScript. It is highly configurable and supports a wide range of plugins and rules. Compared to grunt-contrib-jshint, ESLint offers more flexibility and a larger ecosystem of plugins.

jscs

JSCS (JavaScript Code Style) is a code style linter for JavaScript. It focuses on enforcing coding conventions and style guidelines. While JSHint checks for potential errors and code quality, JSCS is more focused on code style.

tslint

TSLint is a linter for TypeScript code. It helps to enforce coding standards and catch potential errors in TypeScript projects. While grunt-contrib-jshint is for JavaScript, TSLint is specifically designed for TypeScript.

README

grunt-contrib-jshint

Validate files with JSHint.

Getting Started

This plugin requires Grunt ~0.4.0

If you haven't used Grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a Gruntfile as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command:

npm install grunt-contrib-jshint --save-dev

Once the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-jshint');

Jshint task

Run this task with the grunt jshint command.

Task targets, files and options may be specified according to the grunt Configuring tasks guide.

Options

Any specified option will be passed through directly to JSHint, thus you can specify any option that JSHint supports. See the JSHint documentation for a list of supported options.

A few additional options are supported:

globals

Type: Object Default value: null

A map of global variables, with keys as names and a boolean value to determine if they are assignable. This is not a standard JSHint option, but is passed into the JSHINT function as its third argument. See the JSHint documentation for more information.

jshintrc

Type: String Default value: null

If this filename is specified, options and globals defined therein will be used. The jshintrc file must be valid JSON and looks something like this:

{
  "curly": true,
  "eqnull": true,
  "eqeqeq": true,
  "undef": true,
  "globals": {
    "jQuery": true
  }
}

force

Type: Boolean Default value: false

Set force to true to report JSHint errors but not fail the task.

Usage examples

Wildcards

In this example, running grunt jshint:all (or grunt jshint because jshint is a [multi task][]) will lint the project's Gruntfile as well as all JavaScript files in the lib and test directories and their subdirectores, using the default JSHint options.

// Project configuration.
grunt.initConfig({
  jshint: {
    all: ['Gruntfile.js', 'lib/**/*.js', 'test/**/*.js']
  }
});

Linting before and after concatenating

In this example, running grunt jshint will lint both the "beforeconcat" set and "afterconcat" sets of files. This is not ideal, because dist/output.js may get linted before it gets created via the grunt-contrib-concat plugin concat task.

In this case, you should lint the "beforeconcat" files first, then concat, then lint the "afterconcat" files, by running grunt jshint:beforeconcat concat jshint:afterconcat.

// Project configuration.
grunt.initConfig({
  concat: {
    dist: {
      src: ['src/foo.js', 'src/bar.js'],
      dest: 'dist/output.js'
    }
  },
  jshint: {
    beforeconcat: ['src/foo.js', 'src/bar.js'],
    afterconcat: ['dist/output.js']
  }
});

Specifying JSHint options and globals

In this example, custom JSHint options are specified. Note that when grunt jshint:uses_defaults is run, those files are linted using the default options, but when grunt jshint:with_overrides is run, those files are linted using merged task/target options.

// Project configuration.
grunt.initConfig({
  jshint: {
    options: {
      curly: true,
      eqeqeq: true,
      eqnull: true,
      browser: true,
      globals: {
        jQuery: true
      },
    },
    uses_defaults: ['dir1/**/*.js', 'dir2/**/*.js'],
    with_overrides: {
      options: {
        curly: false,
        undef: true,
      },
      files: {
        src: ['dir3/**/*.js', 'dir4/**/*.js']
      },
    }
  },
});

Release History

• 2013-04-04   v0.4.0   Revert task level options to override jshintrc files.
• 2013-03-13   v0.3.0   Bump to JSHint 1.1.0. Add force option to report JSHint errors but not fail the task. Add error/warning code to message. Allow task level options to override jshintrc file.
• 2013-02-26   v0.2.0   Bump to JSHint 1.0
• 2013-02-15   v0.1.1   First official release for Grunt 0.4.0.
• 2013-01-18   v0.1.1rc6   Updating grunt/gruntplugin dependencies to rc6. Changing in-development grunt/gruntplugin dependency versions from tilde version ranges to specific versions.
• 2013-01-09   v0.1.1rc5   Updating to work with grunt v0.4.0rc5. Switching to this.filesSrc api.
• 2012-10-18   v0.1.0   Work in progress, not yet officially released.

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Task submitted by "Cowboy" Ben Alman

This file was generated on Thu Apr 04 2013 21:33:36.