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Bug 312426

Summary:	API Tools doesn't distinguish source and binary compatibility
Product:	[Eclipse Project] PDE	Reporter:	Tristan de Inés <tristan_de_ines>
Component:	API Tools	Assignee:	PDE API Tools Inbox <pde-apitools-inbox>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:
Severity:	enhancement
Priority:	P3
Version:	4.0
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	PC
OS:	Windows 7
Whiteboard:	stalebug

Description Tristan de Inés

2010-05-11 09:54:52 EDT

Build Identifier: I20100429-1549

The API Tools have a list of compatibility issues that can be analyzed for compatibility with previous versions. The severity level for these can be configured in the Eclipse preferences.

From looking at the list, it seems that API Tools makes no difference between source and binary compatibility issues.
E.g. under the category "Classes" there is:
"A method (that needs to be implemented) has been added" - this is only a source compatibility issue. Adding methods is binary compatible according to Java Spec.

Under "Interfaces" there is:
"A field has been added" - As far as I know this can only be a binary compatibility issue.

Then there are the issues that are specific to Eclipse and the API Tools, such as the annotations (@since, @noimplement, etc.).

The API Tools mix these three different types of API compatibility and treats them all the same (or at least it appears to be so from looking at the API Tools configuration pages). I think it would be useful to differentiate between source, binary and tool-specific compatibility issues and provide configuration/tool support for handling these different types (e.g. report only binary compatibility problems).

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1 Tristan de Inés

2010-05-18 05:05:55 EDT

Related to bug report:
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=247509

Comment 2 Eclipse Webmaster

2019-09-06 16:13:13 EDT

This bug hasn't had any activity in quite some time. Maybe the problem got resolved, was a duplicate of something else, or became less pressing for some reason - or maybe it's still relevant but just hasn't been looked at yet.

If you have further information on the current state of the bug, please add it. The information can be, for example, that the problem still occurs, that you still want the feature, that more information is needed, or that the bug is (for whatever reason) no longer relevant.

Comment 3 Julian Honnen

2019-09-09 02:28:16 EDT

Please remove the stalebug flag, if this issue is still relevant and can be reproduced on the latest release.