In a customized doclet, it used to work well scanning jdk 1.6 code, although there is an error message, but it's treated as warning rather error, so everything works well, doclet is finished successfully. For example, it works well in jdk9-b161.

============= b161 =============

Loading source files for package org.omg.stub.java.rmi...
Constructing Javadoc information...
/home/oracle/workspace/jdk/jdk6/jdk6/jdk/src/share/classes/com/sun/java/swing/plaf/nimbus/NimbusLookAndFeel.java:86: error: cannot find symbol
    private NimbusDefaults defaults;
            ^
  symbol: class NimbusDefaults
  location: class NimbusLookAndFeel
[since tag] is output in truncate mode
[since tag] is scanning source code of jdk 1.6
[since tag] igore parsing baseline files
1 warning

But in jdk9-b162, it does not work well, because seems the error (same error as above one) is treated as an real error rather than a warning, so doclet fails with an error.

============= b162 =============

Loading source files for package org.omg.stub.java.rmi...
Constructing Javadoc information...
/home/oracle/workspace/jdk/jdk6/jdk6/jdk/src/share/classes/com/sun/java/swing/plaf/nimbus/NimbusLookAndFeel.java:86: error: cannot find symbol
    private NimbusDefaults defaults;
            ^
  symbol: class NimbusDefaults
  location: class NimbusLookAndFeel
1 error
I think the behavior change is introduced by https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8175219.


If the behavior change described in current bug is expected implementation in JDK-8175219, then
 1. is there a way for me to workaround the issue?
 2. is it feasible to adding an option to switch on/off the behavior change.

I hope the error could be ignored by javadoc rather than to exit with an error.