Checkstyle - check only method in interface

Question

Is it possible apply JavadocMethod checker only on methods in interface? (not in implementation classes)

Answer 1

If you are using Java 6, you can annotate the implementing method with @Override, which will tell the JavadocMethod checker not to require a Javadoc comment. Quoting the JavadocMethod docs:

Javadoc is not required on a method that is tagged with the @Override annotation.

The documentation continues stating that you need Java 6. In Java 5, you can still use {@inheritdoc}, which is better than nothing:

However under Java 5 it is not possible to mark a method required for an interface (this was corrected under Java 6). Hence Checkstyle supports using the convention of using a single {@inheritDoc} tag instead of all the other tags.

The built-in Eclipse code formatter can automatically add the @Override annotations for you, so this should be pretty much what you need.

Answer 2

We had plan to implement it also, keep at eye on issue, not sure when we fix it, or welcome to provide patch we already have full infrastructure for development.