Summary

The behavior of the standard doclet is changed to use default values if necessary for @since, @author and @version on nested classes.

Problem

If any of @since, @author, @version are missing on a nested class, no value will be reported on the corresponding generated page. To determine the value, an end-user would have to click through to the page for the enclosing class.

Solution

When any of @since, @author, or @version are missing on a nested class, recursively look for corresponding tags on the enclosing class or interface.

Specification

There are no changes to the syntactic forms of any tags. The following changes to Doc Comment Specification provide additional rules as to how the standard doclet will handle the lack of certain tags in the main description for member types:

--- a/.../src/jdk.javadoc/share/specs/javadoc/doc-comment-spec.md
+++ b/.../src/jdk.javadoc/share/specs/javadoc/doc-comment-spec.md
@@ -368,6 +368,9 @@ between names. In the latter case, the entire text is copied to the generated
 document without being parsed. Therefore, you can use multiple names per line
 if you want a localized name separator other than a comma.

+If there are no `@author` tags in the description for a member class or interface, 
+the standard doclet will (recursively) look for any such tags in the enclosing class or interface.
+
 Introduced in JDK 1.0.

 ### {@code}
@@ -933,6 +936,9 @@ was added to the reference implementation. Multiple `@since` tags are allowed
 and are treated like multiple [`@author`](#author) tags. You could use multiple
 tags when the program element is used by more than one API.

+If there are no `@since` tags in the description for a member class or interface,
+the standard doclet will (recursively) look for any such tags in the enclosing class or interface.
+
 Introduced in JDK 1.1.

 ### @snippet
@@ -1314,6 +1320,9 @@ space between the names. In the latter case, the entire text is copied to the
 generated document without being parsed. Therefore, you can use multiple names
 per line when you want a localized separator other than a comma.

+If there are no `@version` tags in the description for a member class or interface,
+the standard doclet will (recursively) look for any such tags in the enclosing class or interface.
+
 Introduced in JDK 1.0.

In addition, the following clarifications are made to the javadoc "man" page, regarding options related to these tags.

--- a/.../src/jdk.javadoc/share/man/javadoc.md
+++ b/.../src/jdk.javadoc/share/man/javadoc.md
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 ---
-# Copyright (c) 1994, 2023, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
+# Copyright (c) 1994, 2024, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
 #

 title: 'JAVADOC(1) JDK @@VERSION_SHORT@@ | JDK Commands'
@@ -354,7 +354,7 @@ The following options are provided by the standard doclet.
     _html-code_.

 <span id="option-author">`-author`</span>
-:   Includes the `@author` text in the generated docs.
+:   Includes the text of any `@author` tags in the generated documentation.

 <span id="option-bottom">`-bottom` *html-code*</span>
 :   Specifies the text to be placed at the bottom of each generated page.
@@ -714,8 +714,8 @@ The following options are provided by the standard doclet.
     `-noqualifier` option is used.

 <span id="option-nosince">`-nosince`</span>
-:   Omits from the generated documents the `Since` sections associated with the
-    `@since` tags.
+:   Omits from the generated documentation the `Since` sections derived from 
+    any `@since` tags.

 <span id="option-notimestamp">`-notimestamp`</span>
 :   Suppresses the time stamp, which is hidden in an HTML comment in the
@@ -895,8 +895,9 @@ The following options are provided by the standard doclet.
     **USE** link in the navigation bar.

 <span id="option-version">`-version`</span>
-:   Includes the version text in the generated docs. This text is omitted by
-    default. To find out what version of the `javadoc` tool you are using, use
+:   Includes the text of any `@version` tags in the generated documentation. 
+    This text is omitted by default.
+    Note: To find out what version of the `javadoc` tool you are using, use
     the `--version` option (with two hyphens).

 <span id="option-windowtitle">`-windowtitle` *title*</span>