Summary

The old standard doclet and its internal APIs have been replaced and were deprecated for removal in JDK 9, and should now be removed.

Problem

The old standard doclet has been replaced with a new version introduced in JDK 9, and is now deprecated for removal. The old version is no longer supported and does not support recent new language features, such as modules, and should now be removed.

Note: this only applies to the "standard doclet" itself, and does not apply to support for the underlying API, which continues to be minimally supported, albeit deprecated.

Solution

The old standard doclet implementation found in langtools/src/jdk.javadoc/share/classes/com/sun/tools/doclets will be removed. The standard doclet at langtools/src/jdk.javadocshare/classes/com/sun/tools/doclets/standard/Standard.java, will be replaced by a skeletal implementation, to inform users that this is not the doclet they are looking for.

The skeletal implementation also helps provide support for testing the continued support for the old API.

Specification

This is an informative csr, as there was never a formal specification for the standard doclet. There was an informal specification, giving the specific class name of the doclet, in older versions of the "Tool Reference Guide" for the javadoc tool, but most users simply rely on the standard doclet being the default doclet that is used when none is specified, and that now invokes the new standard doclet.