Re: [jakartaee-tck-dev] A quick thought about signature tests

[Mark Thomas <markt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 27/05/2020 14:30, Jan Supol wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I just hit a side-effect I have not thought about earlier, which I want
> to bring to a discussion about the idea of removing/replacing signature
> tests. I am not sure whether it is supports the idea of having the
> signature tests removed or contrary...
> 
> The idea I heard quite some time ago, and it may not be valid any
> longer, is that the signature tests are no longer needed, since the API
> is brought over from maven central and noone is modifying the API any
> longer.

That is not the case.

Apache Tomcat continues to provide ALv2 licensed API JARs for a number
of the Jakarta EE specifications and will almost certainly continue to
do so.

The reasons for doing this have varied over time but the amount to
providing the project with greater flexibility for minimal effort. For
example, a local copy of the spec APIs has proved useful when
investigating potential new features such as the HttpServletMapping
interface added in Servlet 4. Having to round-trip via an upstream spec
project would have slowed things down significantly.

The signature tests are also a useful cross-check that the API hasn't
been accidentally modified.

When the API is updated the separate update to the signature files is a
useful cross-check that only the intended changes have been made.

Mark