StandardDoclet requires private DocletEnvironment (due to a cast in WorkArounds)

[Jonathan Gibbons]

On 7/11/20 12:30 PM, Dawid Weiss wrote:
> Hi Jon,
>
>> In this case, it would (probably) be easier for you to just use a
>> standard StandardFileManager (no subtyping required) and use
>> the setLocation call to set the DOCUMENTATION_OUTPUT  [...]
> Ah... Brilliant. You're right - it'd be a much better solution.
>
>> At least part of the problem we're dealing with here is that JavaFileManager
>> was not designed for all of javadoc's needs. (It was designed with javac
>> in mind, and designed before the NIO file system API was available.)
> I (and anyone) can see this historical baggage looking at JDK sources.
> It's still in
> better shape than it used to be though (where pretty much everything
> was in proprietary
> space).
>
>> On supporting a ZIP file system, ... "possibly".
> No pressure. It'd be an esoteric feature, no doubt. But it'd be also a
> good way to test whether the
> public API leans towards such use cases. It's surely fun to play with
> them - I think they're vastly
> underrated (the doclet API in particular).
>
> Dawid

Dawid,

It used to be a relatively difficult feature to add.  Even when NIO was 
added, zipfs was not initially a standard provider. Now, given the 
availability of NIO and zipfs as a standard filesystem provider, it 
would be relatively easy to add support for writing into zip files. But 
the use case for javac has never been very compelling, and so the 
ability to write into zip files has been left to higher level tools.  
But the use case for javadoc is more interesting and somewhat more 
realistic, which raises it up a notch on the wish-list. I suspect the 
hardest part will be figuring out the command-line semantics!

As for the doclet API, it is less important than it used to be, because 
of the availability of alternate modeling APIs when documentation is not 
required ... but taglets are becoming more interesting.  Watch for some 
updates, or at least some specific RFEs being filed in JBS.

-- Jon