Release 1.8.4 of the Checker Framework and Type Annotations compiler

[David McArthur]

We have released a new version of the Type Annotations (JSR 308) compiler,

the Checker Framework, and the Eclipse plugin for the Checker Framework.

* The Type Annotations compiler supports type annotation syntax.

* The Checker Framework lets you create and/or run pluggable type checkers,

    in order to detect and prevent bugs in your code.

* The Eclipse plugin makes it more convenient to run the Checker Framework.

You can find documentation and download links for these projects at:

http://types.cs.washington.edu/jsr308/

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Changes for the Checker Framework 

The new Constant Value Checker is a constant propagation analysis:  it

determines which variable values can be known at compile time.

Overriding methods now inherit declaration annotations from methods they

override, if the declaration annotation is meta-annotate with

@InheritedAnnotation.  In particular, the purity annotations @SideEffectFree,

@Deterministic, and @Pure are inherited.

Command-line options:

 * Renamed the -AenablePurity command-line flag to -AcheckPurityAnnotations.

 * Added a command-line option -AoutputArgsToFile to output all command-line

   options passed to the compiler to a file.  This is especially useful when

   debugging Maven compilation.

Annotations:

These changes are relevant only to people who wish to use pluggable

type-checking with a standard Java 7 toolset.  (If you are not having

trouble with your Java 7 JVM, then you don't care about them.)

 * Made clean-room reimplementations of nullness-related annotations

   compatible with Java 7 JVMs, by removing TYPE_USE as a target.

 * Added a new set of Java 7 compatibility annotations for the Nullness Checker

   in the org.checkerframework.checker.nullness.compatqual package. These

   annotations do not require Java 8 but can only be placed in annotation

   locations valid in Java 7.

Java 8 support:

The Checker Framework no longer crashes when type-checking code with lambda

expressions, but it does issue a lambda.unsupported warning when

type-checking code containing lambda expressions.  Full support for

type-checking lambda expressions will appear in a future release.

Fixed Issue 343.

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Changes for the Type Annotations Compiler

Made it possible to compile Java 8 lambdas on a Java 7 JDK.

This feature is for type-checking only. The compiled code

still requires a Java 8 JVM to execute.