I inherited project responsibility for maintenance and refinement of a Java application that works pretty well. However, I am unfamiliar with the code base and would like to find one or more tools to help review the code and identify potential bugs so that when we get the code into a source control system we will have an understanding of where to begin cleaning up the code.

FindBugs™ is a nice static analyzer that can identify a variety of bugs and potential bugs in Java code. Version 1.3.2 was released earlier this month and can be downloaded and installed locally or it can be launched via Java Web Start from the FindBugs page on sourceforge.net. The program can analyze class files and/or source files. When you launch the program and create a new project you are prompted to choose the path to the class archives and directories to analyze and for the path to the source files as well as the path to auxiliary classes that reside elsewhere. When you click the Finish button in the dialog the program analyzes your code and presents a tree-view listing the identified items organized by categories, such as Correctness, Performance, and others, including my favorite, Dodgy, where things like using static fields from instance methods are listed. As you select an item in the bug tree an explanation is provided in the text panel and if the source code was included in the project selections the appropriate line in the source code is highlighted. FindBugs quickly provides an overview of items you may want to address in your Java code.