Allow users to specify annotated jdk path

[YutongZhuu]

This is a hacky initial design. I have some questions about the next steps.

Currently, we can run a Gradle task that generates a JAR file for the annotated-jdk. I’ve hardcoded a file path in the checker so that it uses the JAR file I generated.

If I remove this line and run assembleForJavac, it generates a checker.jar that doesn’t contain the annotated-jdk classes. However:

1. I can’t compile the project with assemble — I assume there’s more work needed to make this work.
2. Should I worry about this at all? It seems reasonable to have a default annotated-jdk we can use.

processResources.dependsOn(copyAndMinimizeAnnotatedJdkFiles)

The goal of this project is to provide flexibility for users, so it doesn’t really make sense to use a task in this repo to produce the JAR file. Maybe we should add a task to the annotated-jdk repo instead, and allow users to pass the path to their customized annotated-jdk as a command-line argument to the checker.

Let me know your thoughts — thanks for reviewing!

[byd110]

Thank you for submitting this PR! The reason that your ./gradlew assemble fails is that the annotated-jdk is added to the source directories at line 20 in framework/build.gradle. Adding the dependency processResources.dependsOn(annotatedJdkJar) could be one solution.

I think it's a reasonable next step to refine the hardcoded path in the code. One possible way could be that we copy the given jar file to checker/dist, then we can point to that fix url in the AnnotationFileElementTypes.java.

[YutongZhuu]

Thank you for submitting this PR! The reason that your ./gradlew assemble fails is that the annotated-jdk is added to the source directories at line 20 in framework/build.gradle. Adding the dependency processResources.dependsOn(annotatedJdkJar) could be one solution.

I think it's a reasonable next step to refine the hardcoded path in the code. One possible way could be that we copy the given jar file to checker/dist, then we can point to that fix url in the AnnotationFileElementTypes.java.

Are you suggesting that we should always expect users to copy their compiled annotatedJDK.jar to checker/dist?

[byd110]

Thank you for submitting this PR! The reason that your ./gradlew assemble fails is that the annotated-jdk is added to the source directories at line 20 in framework/build.gradle. Adding the dependency processResources.dependsOn(annotatedJdkJar) could be one solution.
I think it's a reasonable next step to refine the hardcoded path in the code. One possible way could be that we copy the given jar file to checker/dist, then we can point to that fix url in the AnnotationFileElementTypes.java.

Are you suggesting that we should always expect users to copy their compiled annotatedJDK.jar to checker/dist?

Yes, this could be one solution. We can also make a local copy when receiving the path to external annotated jdk. I think having a copy within the project keeps the independency, which is the same idea that we keep a copy of the annotated jdk under framework.

[YutongZhuu]

Thank you for submitting this PR! The reason that your ./gradlew assemble fails is that the annotated-jdk is added to the source directories at line 20 in framework/build.gradle. Adding the dependency processResources.dependsOn(annotatedJdkJar) could be one solution.
I think it's a reasonable next step to refine the hardcoded path in the code. One possible way could be that we copy the given jar file to checker/dist, then we can point to that fix url in the AnnotationFileElementTypes.java.

Are you suggesting that we should always expect users to copy their compiled annotatedJDK.jar to checker/dist?

Yes, this could be one solution. We can also make a local copy when receiving the path to external annotated jdk. I think having a copy within the project keeps the independency, which is the same idea that we keep a copy of the annotated jdk under framework.

This is how I use my feature.

/checker/bin/javac \         
  -J-Dchecker.annotated.jdk.jar=/Users/yutongzhu/dev/URA/checker-framework/checker/dist/annotated-jdk.jar \
  -processor org.checkerframework.checker.nullness.NullnessChecker \
  TestAnnotatedJdk.java

Hi, I am not understanding why do we want to make a local copy because we already have an internal version inside checker.jar that we can use.

I removed all absolute paths from my code. Now it will fallback to the internal version if it cannot find the external one.

I also removed the gradle task that builds an annotated-jdk.jar, since I think it doesn't make sense to have a task that builds something that framework is independent of in this repo. Maybe the next step is to modify the annotated-jdk repo to have this function? I am not sure how difficult it is for a user to generate an annotated-jdk.jar file.

Thank you for reviewing.

[byd110]

Ah I see, I thought the external jdk is specified when compiling the CF. The copy is not necessary if you specify it when running the checker javac.

Adding a task to generate annotated-jdk.jar sounds good to me. Maybe it's also good to look at if this improvement can also be mentioned in manual? Like chapter 35 here or chapter 36.10 here.

[YutongZhuu]

Ah I see, I thought the external jdk is specified when compiling the CF. The copy is not necessary if you specify it when running the checker javac.

Adding a task to generate annotated-jdk.jar sounds good to me. Maybe it's also good to look at if this improvement can also be mentioned in manual? Like chapter 35 here or chapter 36.10 here.

Hi, I just found that there is a script for creating .jar files in the jdk repo - https://github.com/eisop/jdk/blob/master/createjdkJAR.sh. Could you confirm this file does what I think it does? I will add some descriptions to the manual. @byd110 , let me know if there is something else you'd like to change in this PR.