How to work around the stricter Java 8 Javadoc when using Maven
Solution 1
For now, the easiest way I know to work around the stricter Java 8 Javadoc when using Maven is deactivating it.
Since the parameter -Xdoclint:none
only exists in Java 8, defining this parameter breaks the build for any other Java. To prevent this, we can create a profile that will be active only for Java 8, making sure our solution works regardless of the Java version.
<profiles>
<profile>
<id>disable-java8-doclint</id>
<activation>
<jdk>[1.8,)</jdk>
</activation>
<properties>
<additionalparam>-Xdoclint:none</additionalparam>
</properties>
</profile>
</profiles>
Just add that to your POM and you're good to go.
For maven-javadoc-plugin 3.0.0 users:
Replace
<additionalparam>-Xdoclint:none</additionalparam>
by
<doclint>none</doclint>
Thanks @banterCZ!
Solution 2
If you are using the maven javadoc plugin, you can use the failOnError
option to prevent it from stopping if it finds any html errors:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<failOnError>false</failOnError>
</configuration>
</plugin>
Or you can deactivate the strict html options completely with:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<additionalparam>-Xdoclint:none</additionalparam>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
For more info.
Solution 3
Since version 3.0.0 of maven-javadoc-plugin the doclint is configured via the dedicated XML tag
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
<version>3.0.0</version>
<configuration>
<doclint>none</doclint>
</configuration>
</plugin>
Solution 4
Note that for the error no summary or caption for table
, using <table summary="">
won't work anymore. If that's your situation, add a <caption>
element to your table, like this:
<table>
<caption>Examples</caption>
...
</table>
Hope this helps someone out there. It took me a while until I found this out.
Solution 5
I like @ThiagoPorciúncula's solution but it didn't quite go far enough for me.
I typically already have javadoc plugin additionalparam
set which were not being overridden by the profile. Because of this I had to:
- Set a
disableDoclint
property to be empty by default. - If in java >= 8, set the
disableDoclint
property to be-Xdoclint:none
- The use
${disableDoclint} in the
additionalparamsection of the
maven-javadoc-plugin`.
This seems to work well albeit verbose.
<properties>
<!-- set empty property -->
<disableDoclint></disableDoclint>
</properties>
<profiles>
<profile>
<id>disable-java8-doclint</id>
<activation>
<jdk>[1.8,)</jdk>
</activation>
<properties>
<!-- set property if >= java 8 -->
<disableDoclint>-Xdoclint:none</disableDoclint>
</properties>
</profile>
...
</profiles>
Then down below I could use the optional ${disableDoclint}
variable in the additionalparam
section that I had already defined.
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
<executions>
<execution>
<goals>
<goal>jar</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<showPackage>false</showPackage>
<additionalparam>-tag inheritDoc:X ${disableDoclint}</additionalparam>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
<configuration>
<showPackage>false</showPackage>
<bottom>This documentation content is licensed...</bottom>
<additionalparam>-tag inheritDoc:X ${disableDoclint}</additionalparam>
</configuration>
</plugin>
This works under java 8 but doesn't cause syntax errors under java 7. Woo hoo!
peterh
Updated on July 08, 2022Comments
-
peterh almost 2 years
You'll quickly realize that JDK8 is a lot more strict (by default) when it comes to Javadoc. (link - see last bullet point)
If you never generate any Javadoc then of course you'll not experience any problems but things like Maven release process and possibly your CI builds will suddenly fail where they worked just fine with JDK7. Anything that checks the exit value of the Javadoc tool will now fail. JDK8 Javadoc is probably also more verbose in terms of
warnings
compared to JDK7 but that's not the scope here. We are talking abouterrors
!This question exist to collect proposals on what to do about it. What is the best approach ? Should these errors be fixed once and for all in the source code files? If you have a huge code base this might be a lot of work. What other options exist ?
You are also welcome to comment with stories of what now fails that would previously pass.
Horror stories of what now fails
wsimport tools
wsimport
tool is a code generator for creating web service consumers. It is included in the JDK. Even if you use thewsimport
tool from JDK8 it will nevertheless produce source code that cannot be compiled with the javadoc compiler from JDK8.@author tag
I'm opening up source code files 3-4 years old and see this:
/** * My very best class * @author John <[email protected]> */
This now fails because of the < character. Strictly speaking this is justified, but not very forgiving.
HTML tables
HTML Tables in your Javadoc? Consider this valid HTML:
/** * * <table> * <tr> * <td>Col1</td><td>Col2</td><td>Col3</td> * </tr> * </table> */
This now fails with error message
no summary or caption for table
. One quick fix is to do like this:/** * * <table summary=""> * <tr> * <td>Col1</td><td>Col2</td><td>Col3</td> * </tr> * </table> */
but why this has to be a stop-the-world error from Javadoc tool beats me??
Things that now fail for more obvious reasons
- Invalid links, e.g.
{@link notexist}
- Malformed HTML, e.g.
always returns <code>true<code> if ...
UPDATE
Links:
Excellent blog on the subject by Stephen Colebourne.
- Invalid links, e.g.
-
peterh about 10 yearsHmm. The problem with these solutions is that if you think of it with JDK8 Javadoc you would want not to fail on errors whereas with JDK7 Javadoc you do. So for this reason I like best the
-Xdoclint
option. The hope is it will be silently ignored if executed with a JDK7 Javadoc ? -
Donal Fellows about 10 yearsYou could apply the option conditionally via a maven profile keyed on the Java version…?
-
Giovanni Toraldo almost 10 yearsNope, with JDK7 it fail with javadoc: error - invalid flag: -Xdoclint:none (nice job Oracle).
-
peterh over 8 yearsI'll accept this as the most likely solution that most of us will implement. I like the
<activation>
part. But I wish someone would come up with a tool that could go through those many source files and aid the developer in fixing the errors ... rather than just turning off DocLint. -
mwhs over 7 yearsBeware using this solution if you rely on another profile being active by default at the same time (using activeByDefault=true).
-
Daniel Hári about 7 years@peterh: There is no meaning of documenting fully everything, that is a useless duplicated work, by clean code principles it is recommended to document only what is not obvious, and the public API.
-
Mehrad Sadegh over 6 yearsThis does not work with maven-javadoc-plugin version 3.0.0. I had to go back to version 3.0.0-M1 for making -Xdoclint:none work.
-
banterCZ over 6 years@MehradSadegh For maven-javadoc-plugin version 3.0.0 just replace
<additionalparam>-Xdoclint:none</additionalparam>
by<doclint>none</doclint>
-
amanzoor over 6 yearsAs off maven-javadoc-plugin version 3.0.0 you can use additionalJOption property to pass options to javadoc, it will be <additionalJOption>-Xdoclint:none</additionalJOption> property in this case.
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Saurabhcdt over 6 yearsYes, Adding JDK 8 related profile & setting <doclint>none</doclint> resolves the issue. It generates javadoc jar same as it was generating in JDK 7. Thanks.
-
old-monk over 5 years
<doclint>none</doclint>
finally helped after searching stackoverflows for a while.. thanks!!! -
peterh about 5 yearsWhat version of the JDK? For sure the
<table summary="">
trick still works on JDK8. (just tested on jdk1.8.0_201) -
Jeronimo Backes about 5 years@peterh I used jdk 11.
-
kap about 4 yearsThis is the up-to-date answer.
summary="..."
attribute is not supported with HTML5 (the default output for JDK 11 javadoc) any more. It is also supported in JDK 8.