[FIXED] maven-javadoc-plugin sourceFileExcludes not working

Issue

I'm not too sure what is the right way to use this tag, but I use it like this:

<sourceFileExcludes>
  <exclude></exclude>
  <exclude></exclude>
</sourceFileExcludes>

It doesn't work at all. It seems that there was a known bug in maven that this tag won't work as I found these threads: https://stackoverflow.com/a/26223872/3209177

But that was a while ago. I didn't find much useful information on maven website as well.

So how can we exclude certain source files / classes while we build javadoc using maven?

Solution

Finally figured it out.

First, there was an known bug as tracked in this page: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/MJAVADOC-365 And the patch went into the plugin 2.10.2. So after that version, the bug is fixed. However, I was using some earlier version.

Second, use this schema:

<sourceFileExcludes>
  <sourceFileExclude></sourceFileExclude>
  <sourceFileExclude></sourceFileExclude>
</sourceFileExcludes>

To exclude file.

Third, in the sourceFileExclude, I used someClass.java, this is probably not right. Instead, I used someClass.* and this works for me.

Answered By - pythonician_plus_plus
Answer Checked By - David Marino (JavaFixing Volunteer)