Is there a way to denote nullability using javadoc...

# announcements

[Bernhard]

Is there a way to denote nullability using javadoc? I have to ship only one jar due to enterprise madness and annotations seem to have deps as well

[Stephan Schroeder]

There has to be a way because @Nullable shows up in Spring API javadoc: https://docs.spring.io/spring-framework/docs/current/javadoc-api/org/springframework/beans/factory/support/AbstractBeanFactory.html#evaluateBeanDefinitionString-java.lang.String-org.springframework.beans.factory.config.BeanDefinition-

[Bernhard]

@Stephan Schroeder that's because @Nullable has the @Documented annotation: https://docs.spring.io/spring-framework/docs/current/javadoc-api/org/springframework/lang/Nullable.html

[Stephan Schroeder]

and this disqualifies it for you??

[Bernhard]

I can't have a dependency on the jar

[Bernhard]

the one that ships the nullability annotations

[Bernhard]

jsr305 is unfortunately not shipped with the java stdlib

[Stephan Schroeder]

you could simply write for each @param and @return if null is allowed.

[Bernhard]

yep

[Stephan Schroeder]

or maybe create a fat-jar that contains jsr305??

[Bernhard]

does that create collisions if they have the same dep?

[Stephan Schroeder]

if you have conflicting versions of jsr305 (is that a thing?), than yes

[diesieben07]

You do not need a hard-dependency on the annotations jar. You can include it in your build process, but your library will be usable without clients also depending on the annotations jar.

[Bernhard]

@diesieben07 as long as the annotations are on the classpath right?

[diesieben07]

No.

[Bernhard]

thanks