A DESCRIPTION OF THE REQUEST :
@Deprecated on an overridden method whose return type is deprecated should not generated a deprecation warning at compile time. This kind of warning was found in Tiger when extending sun.awt.FontConfiguration and implementing the getDefaultFontCharset method, whose return type CharToByteConverter is deprecated. A sample program shows that the same behavior occurs in Mustang. Using a @deprecated javadoc instead of the annotation removes the warning.


JUSTIFICATION :
If the method itself is deprecated, there's no need to generate a warning about its return type being deprecated. A warning should be generated if the method itself is used. The annotation should act like the javadoc and prevent the compiler to generate a warning.

EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
In the following program, I would not expect SomethingElse#getInfo to generate a deprecation warning.

D:\temp\java>javac -Xlint:deprecation DeprecatedTest.java
DeprecatedTest.java:10: warning:[deprecation] DeprecatedClass in unnamed package has been deprecated
        abstract public DeprecatedClass getInfo();
                        ^

1 warnings
ACTUAL -
D:\temp\java>javac -Xlint:deprecation DeprecatedTest.java
DeprecatedTest.java:10: warning:[deprecation] DeprecatedClass in unnamed package has been deprecated
        abstract public DeprecatedClass getInfo(); <-- ok
                        ^
DeprecatedTest.java:16: warning:[deprecation] DeprecatedClass in unnamed package has been deprecated
        public DeprecatedClass getInfo() { <-- ng
               ^
2 warnings

---------- BEGIN SOURCE ----------
class DeprecatedClass {
}

abstract class Something {

abstract public DeprecatedClass getInfo();
}

class SomethingElse {

@Deprecated
public DeprecatedClass getInfo() {
return null;
}
}
---------- END SOURCE ----------

CUSTOMER SUBMITTED WORKAROUND :
Using the @deprecated javadoc removes the warning.