jQuery Lint is a simple script you can download and use with jQuery. It works over the top of jQuery and diligently reports errors and any incorrect usage of jQuery. It will also, to some extent, offer guidance on best practices and performance concerns.

Unlike JSLint, jQuery Lint is a runtime reporter. To use it, you need to include it, after jQuery, in your document:

<script src="jquery.js"></script>
<script src="jquery.lint.js"></script>

jQuery lint’s main objective is to notify you of incorrect usages of jQuery’s API. So, if you pass incorrect arguments to any method then jQuery Lint will let you know. It compares your arguments to the argument signatures in jQuery’s API. It reports via Firebug, although you can quite easily plug-in your own console mechanism.

It has four different error-reporting levels (accessible via jQuery.LINT.level), zero reports nothing, three will report everything, including small things like using css().css().css() instead of css({...}). It’s quite configurable too. You can add your own checks. E.g.

jQuery.LINT.special[1].jQuery = jQuery.LINT.special[1].jQuery || [];
 
// Add check on error-reporting level one.
// Check jQuery method.
jQuery.LINT.special[1].jQuery.push(function(selector, context) {
 
    if (selector === '*') {
        return "Don't use the universal selector!";
    }
 
});

jQuery Lint tries to help you in determining where the problem occurred in your code. It’s not much help to you if it just says, “Err, you called css() incorrectly!”. If it occurred as a result of an event then Lint will say so, and if you’re using a browser that provides a stack-trace as part of its Error object (like Firefox) then Lint will also provide you with the file-name and line number. E.g.

jquery Lint - Reporting line number and file name where problem occured.

You can read more about jQuery Lint and download it at Github:

jQuery Lint @ Github

The idea of a lint-like script for jQuery has been floating around for some time. I want to thank Dave Methvin in particular, for it was his idea that sparked my interest originally.

This is quite a young project, so there will be bugs. Please report them!

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