Define a constant instead of duplicating this literal "SQL STATEMENT" n times

[smileBeda (Beda Schmid)]

• ALM used: GitHub
• CI system used (not sure)
• Languages of the repository: PHP
• Error observed: Define a constant instead of duplicating this literal "SQL STATEMENT" n times.
• Steps to reproduce

Create a couple SQL Queries/Statements in PHP (later used with PDO) for example creating a bunch of tables.
You might end up with repeating TEXT NOT NULL or whatever you have to pass as table definitions like this example PHP MySQL Create Table

Just repeat that to create several tables rather than one, each table having at least a couple NOT NULL or whatever else statements you need for the tables.

Copy pasta code:

$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "myDB";

// Create connection
$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);
// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
  die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
} 

// sql to create table
$sql = "CREATE TABLE MyGuests (
id INT(6) UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY, 
firstname VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
anothername VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
morename VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
evenmore VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
lastname VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
email VARCHAR(50),
reg_date TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
)";

if ($conn->query($sql) === TRUE) {
  echo "Table MyGuests created successfully";
} else {
  echo "Error creating table: " . $conn->error;
}

$conn->close();

I do not consider it smart to create constants(! cluttering global space?) or variables just because I repeat that text in SQL Statements.

Do I miss something?
Or could SonarCloud be improved to not complain on such (I consider) false alarms?

[Colin]

Hey there.

I’ve moved your post to the section on reporting false-positives. Please read this post:

How to Report a False-positive / False-negative

Hey SonarSource Community! False-positives happen, as do false-negatives, and we’re eager to fix them. We are thrilled when our users report issues so that we can make our products better. What is a false-positive (FP)? A false-positive is when an issue is raised unexpectedly on code that should not trigger an issue, or where the suggested action doesn’t make any sense for the code. What is a false-negative (FN)? A false-negative is when an issue should be raised on a piece of code, but isn…

Specifically, it would be good if you could add a code snippet where the issue is raised and you think it shouldn’t (so our developers can trivially reproduce the issue).

[smileBeda (Beda Schmid)]

Thanks - updated the OP with some more details.

[Nils_Werner]

Hi @smileBeda,

sorry for the late response.
Can you provide a better reproducer? We can not see any literal duplication in your snippet.

Best,
Nils

[smileBeda (Beda Schmid)]

Perhaps I can share access to the actual source where this happens?
It might be easier to replicate?
It is however a private repo, but I have shared the access to it in past to someone here, I think it was @Hendrik_Buchwald

[Hendrik_Buchwald]

Hey Beda, are you referring to uhleloX? It seems to be public now?

[smileBeda (Beda Schmid)]

Indeed, sorry, I made it public over the past few days.

The code is this function uhleloX/class-x-install.php at add933e4698c3ff8beb8b16dc550760337778f7b · uhleloX/uhleloX · GitHub

[Nils_Werner]

Hello @smileBeda ,

thank you for providing the project. I have cloned and analyzed it. The 5 issues you see in the file classes/ class-x-install.php line 219-224 are not false positives. In your case, this rule doesn’t make it so reasonable in this context.

In order not to have the issue reoccur in your case, even if you mark the first issues as "Won’t fix’, you need to disable the rule for this file. This works via the settings General Settings > Analysis Scope > Ignore Issues on Multiple Criteria. Here you can enter the rule php:S1192 and the respective file (in this case classes/class-x-install.php).

For more information on how to customize the analysis, see Narrowing the Focus in the documentation.

I hope I could help you.