Unvalidated redirects and forwards are #10 on the OWASP Top Ten.

Redirects which rely on user-supplied values can be used to "spoof" websites or hide malicious links in otherwise harmless-looking URLs. They can also allow access to restricted areas of a site if the destination is not validated.

Brakeman will raise warnings whenever redirect_to appears to be used with a user-supplied value that may allow them to change the :host option.

For example,

redirect_to params.merge(:action => :home)

will create a warning like

Possible unprotected redirect near line 46: redirect_to(params)

This is because params could contain :host => 'evilsite.com' which would redirect away from your site and to a malicious site.

If the first argument to redirect_to is a hash, then adding :only_path => true will limit the redirect to the current host. Another option is to specify the host explicitly.

redirect_to params.merge(:only_path => true)

redirect_to params.merge(:host => 'myhost.com')

If the first argument is a string, then it is possible to parse the string and extract the path:

redirect_to URI.parse(some_url).path

If the URL does not contain a protocol (e.g., http://), then you will probably get unexpected results, as redirect_to will prepend the current host name and a protocol.

Unvalidated redirects and forwards are #10 on the OWASP Top Ten.

Redirects which rely on user-supplied values can be used to "spoof" websites or hide malicious links in otherwise harmless-looking URLs. They can also allow access to restricted areas of a site if the destination is not validated.

Brakeman will raise warnings whenever redirect_to appears to be used with a user-supplied value that may allow them to change the :host option.

For example,

redirect_to params.merge(:action => :home)

will create a warning like

Possible unprotected redirect near line 46: redirect_to(params)

This is because params could contain :host => 'evilsite.com' which would redirect away from your site and to a malicious site.

If the first argument to redirect_to is a hash, then adding :only_path => true will limit the redirect to the current host. Another option is to specify the host explicitly.

redirect_to params.merge(:only_path => true)

redirect_to params.merge(:host => 'myhost.com')

If the first argument is a string, then it is possible to parse the string and extract the path:

redirect_to URI.parse(some_url).path

If the URL does not contain a protocol (e.g., http://), then you will probably get unexpected results, as redirect_to will prepend the current host name and a protocol.

Cognitive Complexity

Cognitive Complexity is a measure of how difficult a unit of code is to intuitively understand. Unlike Cyclomatic Complexity, which determines how difficult your code will be to test, Cognitive Complexity tells you how difficult your code will be to read and comprehend.

A method's cognitive complexity is based on a few simple rules:

• Code is not considered more complex when it uses shorthand that the language provides for collapsing multiple statements into one
• Code is considered more complex for each "break in the linear flow of the code"
• Code is considered more complex when "flow breaking structures are nested"

Further reading

• Cognitive Complexity docs
• Cognitive Complexity: A new way of measuring understandability

Cognitive Complexity

Cognitive Complexity is a measure of how difficult a unit of code is to intuitively understand. Unlike Cyclomatic Complexity, which determines how difficult your code will be to test, Cognitive Complexity tells you how difficult your code will be to read and comprehend.

A method's cognitive complexity is based on a few simple rules:

• Code is not considered more complex when it uses shorthand that the language provides for collapsing multiple statements into one
• Code is considered more complex for each "break in the linear flow of the code"
• Code is considered more complex when "flow breaking structures are nested"

Further reading

• Cognitive Complexity docs
• Cognitive Complexity: A new way of measuring understandability

Cognitive Complexity

Cognitive Complexity is a measure of how difficult a unit of code is to intuitively understand. Unlike Cyclomatic Complexity, which determines how difficult your code will be to test, Cognitive Complexity tells you how difficult your code will be to read and comprehend.

A method's cognitive complexity is based on a few simple rules:

• Code is not considered more complex when it uses shorthand that the language provides for collapsing multiple statements into one
• Code is considered more complex for each "break in the linear flow of the code"
• Code is considered more complex when "flow breaking structures are nested"

Further reading

• Cognitive Complexity docs
• Cognitive Complexity: A new way of measuring understandability

This cop checks for excessive nesting of conditional and looping constructs.

You can configure if blocks are considered using the CountBlocks option. When set to false (the default) blocks are not counted towards the nesting level. Set to true to count blocks as well.

The maximum level of nesting allowed is configurable.

Duplicated Code

Duplicated code can lead to software that is hard to understand and difficult to change. The Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle states:

Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system.

When you violate DRY, bugs and maintenance problems are sure to follow. Duplicated code has a tendency to both continue to replicate and also to diverge (leaving bugs as two similar implementations differ in subtle ways).

Tuning

This issue has a mass of 124.

We set useful threshold defaults for the languages we support but you may want to adjust these settings based on your project guidelines.

The threshold configuration represents the minimum mass a code block must have to be analyzed for duplication. The lower the threshold, the more fine-grained the comparison.

If the engine is too easily reporting duplication, try raising the threshold. If you suspect that the engine isn't catching enough duplication, try lowering the threshold. The best setting tends to differ from language to language.

See codeclimate-duplication's documentation for more information about tuning the mass threshold in your .codeclimate.yml.

Refactorings

• Extract Method
• Extract Class
• Form Template Method
• Introduce Null Object
• Pull Up Method
• Pull Up Field
• Substitute Algorithm

Further Reading

• Don't Repeat Yourself on the C2 Wiki
• Duplicated Code on SourceMaking
• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler. Duplicated Code, p76

This cops checks the indentation of comments.

Example:

# bad
  # comment here
def method_name
end

  # comment here
a = 'hello'

# yet another comment
  if true
    true
  end

# good
# comment here
def method_name
end

# comment here
a = 'hello'

# yet another comment
if true
  true
end

This cop checks whether the rescue and ensure keywords are aligned properly.

Example:

# bad
begin
  something
  rescue
  puts 'error'
end

# good
begin
  something
rescue
  puts 'error'
end

This cop transforms usages of a method call safeguarded by a non nil check for the variable whose method is being called to safe navigation (&.).

Configuration option: ConvertCodeThatCanStartToReturnNil The default for this is false. When configured to true, this will check for code in the format !foo.nil? && foo.bar. As it is written, the return of this code is limited to false and whatever the return of the method is. If this is converted to safe navigation, foo&.bar can start returning nil as well as what the method returns.

Example:

# bad
foo.bar if foo
foo.bar(param1, param2) if foo
foo.bar { |e| e.something } if foo
foo.bar(param) { |e| e.something } if foo

foo.bar if !foo.nil?
foo.bar unless !foo
foo.bar unless foo.nil?

foo && foo.bar
foo && foo.bar(param1, param2)
foo && foo.bar { |e| e.something }
foo && foo.bar(param) { |e| e.something }

# good
foo&.bar
foo&.bar(param1, param2)
foo&.bar { |e| e.something }
foo&.bar(param) { |e| e.something }

foo.nil? || foo.bar
!foo || foo.bar

# Methods that `nil` will `respond_to?` should not be converted to
# use safe navigation
foo.to_i if foo

This cops checks for indentation that doesn't use the specified number of spaces.

See also the IndentationConsistency cop which is the companion to this one.

Example:

# bad
class A
 def test
  puts 'hello'
 end
end

# good
class A
  def test
    puts 'hello'
  end
end

Example: IgnoredPatterns: ['^\s*module']

# bad
module A
class B
  def test
  puts 'hello'
  end
end
end

# good
module A
class B
  def test
    puts 'hello'
  end
end
end