[MJAVADOC-606] doclint fails checking references on dependencies with scope 'provided'

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Not A Problem
• Affects Version/s: 3.1.0
• Component/s: javadoc
• Assignee: Robert Scholte
• Reporter: Aurélien Baudet
• Created: 27/May/19 10:29
• Updated: 16/May/21 09:27
• Resolved: 16/May/21 09:27

Description

Referencing classes from a dependency with scope provided in javadoc using @link fails due to doclint error. It happens during phase javadoc:aggregate. As written in the documentation, the scope compile is used when generating javadoc: "Requires dependency resolution of artifacts in scope: compile". However, there should be a way to reference external classes with scope provided because:

• sometimes we need to explain something that will happen if the dependency is present or not
• sometimes we need to explain features that are handled by external dependency provided by external system (like Spring Boot or JavaEE server)

For the moment, the only possibility is to disable "reference" group for doclint which is bad because I can't ensure that all internal references are working.

<dependency>
	<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
	<artifactId>spring-boot-autoconfigure</artifactId>
	<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

/**
 * see {@link WebMvcAutoConfiguration} to ...
 */
class Foo {
}