It would be useful to use {@inheritDoc} more widely.
Currently, the {@inheritDoc} tag can only be used
in these specific places:
- in the text portion of @return, @throws and @param tags
- in method comments
Other inheritance takes place automatically.
If and only if a Doc object does not have any @see tags of its own,
it inherits @see text from a class or interface from higher in the
inheritance. There is no support for inheriting other tags such as
@since, @deprecated, etc.
The question arises:
1) Shall we extend {@inheritDoc} to work in constructors?
(Constructors do no inherit functionality)
2) Should we allow {@inheritDoc} in be used in any of the other
tags: @see, @deprecated, @since or @serialData?
I can see where someone might want to inherit text
for @see and add more references:
@see {@inheritDoc}, java.lang.String
3) Should we allow {@inheritDoc} to work for main descriptions
or tags in class and interface comments?
Is it true that methods with @serialData are private, so
{@inheritDoc} wouldn't apply there?
Note: The above request is about an explicit {@inheritDoc}
tag. Bug 4646560 is a request for automatic inheritance
to also work with @deprecated like for @return, @param,
@throws and @see.