Java API Compliance
Checker: History

Version 2.4 (January 20, 2018)
Improvements

• Support for Java 9
• Check for changes in annotation elements
• Dump default values of annotation elements
• Added -non-impl option to specify interfaces that should not be implemented by users
• Added -non-impl-all option to tell the tool that all interfaces should not be implemented by users
• Added -check-annotations option to check for changes in annotation types like in other interfaces
• Added more regression tests

Other

• Changed license to LGPL-2.1+
• Bumped API dump version to 2.4

Version 2.3 (August 30, 2017)
Bug Fixes

• Bumped required API dump version to 2.2

Version 2.2 (August 30, 2017)
Analysis

• Fixed analysis of generic types
• Added compatibility rules:
  • Class_Became_Raw
  • Class_Became_Generic
  • Interface_Became_Raw
  • Interface_Became_Generic
  • Changed_Method_Return
  • Variable_Arity_To_Array
  • Array_To_Variable_Arity
  • Field_Became_NonFinal (Src)
  • NonConstant_Field_Became_Static (Src)
  • Static_Method_Became_Final (Bin)
• Fixed rules:
  • Changed_Field_Type
  • Changed_Method_Return_From_Void
  • *_Added_Abstract_Method*
• Fixed anasysis of added/removed super-classes
• Compare class structure if became generic or raw
• Check for unknown compatibility rules
• Do not list added and removed protected methods in final classes
• Reduced severity of changed super-class
• Added -check-packages option to check packages matched by the regular expression
• Fixed filtering of annotated classes
• Fixed -client option

Report

• Show method return type in the problem description
• Fixed signatures of generic constructors
• Fixed order of methods in the report
• Add noindex meta tag to empty reports
• Fixed styles of the report

Dump

• Added GenericParam attribute
• Fixed Type and BaseType of variable arity parameter
• Show warning for old API dump versions
• Increased ID length
• Fixed methods mangled names in the API dump; old dumps should be recreated
• Bumped dump version

Tests

• Added more test cases
• Show path to the tests journal

Misc

• Properly handle errors of javap
• Fixed number of arguments passed to javap on Linux
• Properly handle errors when creating/extracting tarballs

Version 2.1 (February 12, 2017)
Improvements

• Two times faster

Bug Fixes

• Fixed support for Windows
• Fixed API dumps
• Fixed -debug option
• Fixed -test option

Version 2.0 (January 28, 2017)
Improvements

• Code refactoring
• Improved report style
• Works faster on big libraries
• Added a module with compatibility rules
• Added a module to create API dump from disassembled code
• Added a module to handle XML descriptors
• Added a module to filter API symbols
• Added a module to handle input data
• Added a module for logging
• Added a module to unmangle symbols
• Added a module with regression test suite
• Added a module to find system files
• Added a module to handle type attributes
• Added a module with basic functions

Bug Fixes

• Fixed analysis of template instances
• Fixed error message if modules are not installed

Version 1.8 (July 04, 2016)
Improvements

• New style of the report
• Improved analysis of default methods
• Check if all abstract methods of added super-interface have default implementations in the class
• New documentation
• Code refactoring

New Options

• -old-style: generate old-style report
• -dep1, -dep2: specify API dump of the required dependency archive to resolve overwritten methods

Bug Fixes

• Fixed support for Windows platform
• Fixed -client option on OS X
• Select version numbers automatically ('X' and 'Y') if not set by options
• Fixed -skip-packages option

Version 1.7 (April 14, 2016)
Improvements

• Added numbers of checked methods and types to the meta line of the report
• Skip checking of auto-generated methods

New Options

• -skip-internal-types: skip checking of some data types (classes and interfaces)
• -added-annotations: apply filters by annotations only to new version of the library
• -count-methods: count methods in the API dump

Bug Fixes

• Do not count added methods when calculating compatibility rate
• Fixed filtering of checked methods and classes
• Show number of checked classes instead of number of all classes in the report summary
• Fixed -client option
• Fixed html formatting in the report
• Fixed class-file names in the report

Version 1.6 (April 08, 2016)
Improvements

• Support for Scala
• Fixed IDs of API elements (methods and types) in the API dump, requires Digest::MD5 core Perl module
• Show version of used javac compiler instead of the version of java interpreter in the console output
• Check annotations of methods
• Check for removed classes with public static fields and only private constructor
• Check for removed public static fields in classes with only private constructor
• Show percentage of affected methods in the problem description
• Show compatibility rate instead of affect rate in the console output
• Reduced size of the report
• Added more unit tests

New Options

• -compact: simplify formatting and reduce size of the report for a big set of changes
• -skip-annotations-list: skip checking of some annotated classes and methods
• -external-css: generate CSS styles to external file
• -external-js: generate JS scripts to external file

Bug Fixes

• Fixed analysis of deprecated methods and types
• Fixed detection of methods moved up class hierarchy to java.lang.Object
• Fixed support for annotations in Java 8
• Fixed analysis of template types
• Fixed -short option
• Fixed -client option
• Do not skip checking of com.oracle.*, com.sun.*, COM.rsa.*, sun.* and sunw.* packages
• Fixed problem descriptions in the report
• Fixed style of the report
• Added method usage information to an API dump
• Comparison of API dumps is now equivalent to comparison of JARs

Version 1.5 (March 24, 2016)
Improvements

• Up to 100 times faster on big libraries
• Up to 4 times less RAM usage on big libraries
• Improved design of the report
• Replaced verdict with compatibility rate in the report
• Implemented check for removed annotations
• Do not show Java version in the report
• Limited number of affected methods shown in the report
• Do not show package names in the report by default
• Do not show time stamp in the report
• Do not show warning for added class fields
• Added Makefile
• Removed obsolete options
• Reduced size of the report
• Allowed api, dump and apidump extensions of API dump
• Changed format of API dump
• Changed console output

New Options

• -skip-packages
• -dump-path

Bug Fixes

• Fixed affect descriptions
• Fixed issue with API dumps on OS X
• Fixed -jdk-path option
• Fixed -limit-affected option

Version 1.4.1 (March 12, 2015)
Improvements

• Support for Java 8
• Support for limiting checking based on annotations (for Apache HBase)
• Add support for runtime visible annotations

New Options

• -minimal
• -hide-templates
• -hide-packages

Bug Fixes

• Fixed auto-skipping of internal packages
• Fixed warnings on Solaris
• Fixed -client option

Version 1.3.7 (April 25, 2014)
Improvements

• Show Java version in the report summary
• Mark deprecated methods in the report

New Options

• -jdk-path
• -skip-internal

Bug Fixes

• Improved support for Java 7 templates

Other

• Code cleaning

Version 1.3.6 (January 21, 2014)
Improvements

• Support for Java 7

New Options

• -limit-affected

Bug Fixes

• Corrected formatting of output html reports
• Fixed issue #7: "The command line is too long"
• Improved performance on large input objects (30%)
• Fixed issue #8: "-client option doesn't work"

Other

• Code cleaning
• Corrected Makefile

Version 1.2.1 (October 09, 2012)
New Options

• -show-access

Bug Fixes

• Fixed -open and -browse options

Version 1.2 (September 22, 2012)
New Options

• -skip-deprecated
• -skip-classes

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with spaces in the execution path

Other

• Code cleaning

Version 1.1.2 (June 08, 2012)
New Options

• -sort
• -open

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with -classes-list option
• Fixed an issue with spaces in the path to javap and other commands
• Fixed an issue with escaping of inner class specifier

Other

• Code cleaning

Version 1.1 (April 16, 2012)
Improvements

• Improved design of the compatibility report
• Added compatibility rate in the summary of the report
• Added "Other Changes in Data Types" section of the compatibility report

New Options

• -debug
• -quick
• -browse
• -report-path
• -bin-report-path
• -src-report-path

Other

• Code cleaning

Version 1.0.3 (December 13, 2011)
Improvements

• Add Makefile.pl installer

Other

• Corrected INSTALL file
• Corrected help message
• Changed license to dual GPL and LGPL of any version
• Added check for presence of installed JDK-devel package in the system
• Updated copyrights

Version 1.0 (August 30, 2011)
Initial version of the tool.