How to use a custom velocity template for reports?

[gesellix]

We're trying to create a JSON formatted report to ease the integration with our monitoring tools. The existing JSON report doesn't include the overiew/summary like the HTML report, so we're working on a custom template which might be proposed here as soon as we're confident that it makes sense for other users.

Looking at

DependencyCheck/core/src/main/java/org/owasp/dependencycheck/reporting/ReportGenerator.java

Lines 299 to 305 in d8e0902

	* @param format the format the report should be written in (XML, HTML,
	* JSON, CSV, ALL) or even the path to a custom velocity template (either
	* fully qualified or the template name on the class path).
	* @throws ReportException is thrown if there is an error creating out the
	* reports
	*/
	public void write(String outputLocation, String format) throws ReportException {

we hoped that a custom report.vsl file could be used via CLI (e.g. as --format /path/to/report.vsl), but the CliParser fails at

DependencyCheck/cli/src/main/java/org/owasp/dependencycheck/CliParser.java

Lines 148 to 160 in 041d9b0

	if (line.hasOption(ARGUMENT.OUTPUT_FORMAT)) {
	String validating = null;
	try {
	for (String format : getReportFormat()) {
	validating = format;
	Format.valueOf(format);
	}
	} catch (IllegalArgumentException ex) {
	final String msg = String.format("An invalid 'format' of '%s' was specified. "
	+ "Supported output formats are " + SUPPORTED_FORMATS, validating);
	throw new ParseException(msg);
	}
	}

Can you tell how to provide a custom template?

[gesellix]

I have opened #4800 as kind of a quick fix, because it seems like the custom templates are already working for the Ant/Maven plugins, and the CliParser being a bit too restrictive.

[jeremylong]

This will be included in the next release.

[gesellix]

Thanks a lot!