List of breaking API changes and deprecated APIs to be removed for 7.0.0:

• Make AbstractJspNode, AbstractVFNode, and AbstractLombokAwareRule abstract classes
• Remove default implementation of getXPathNodeName from AbstractNode
• The toString methods of nodes can be repurposed as soon as 7.0.0 to output more useful debugging info, see [core] Add getXPathNodeName to the Node interface #879
• Move JavaQualifiedName out of the net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.java.ast, as it's not part of the AST in any way.
• Add method getFormalParameters() in interface ASTMethodOrConstructorDeclaration
• change return type of Object getNextToken(); in n.s.p.lang.TokenManager to GenericToken or even T (with <T extends GenericToken>). See [core] Refactor CPD token filtering #1039

Deprecated APIs:

• AbstractNode.hasDecendantOfAnyType
• n.s.pmd.util.viewer.gui (old ast viewer)
• n.s.pmd.util.designer (old designer)
• PMD.VERSION
  • deprecated on master
  • removed in pmd/7.0.x via 9d1c186
• RuleSetFactory(ClassLoader, RulePriority, boolean, boolean)
  • deprecated on master
  • removed in pmd/7.0.x via 94028a1 and [core] Use ruleset loader in pmd 7 #2969
• Previous rule dependency accessors:
  • Rule.usesDFA, Rule.usesTypeResolution, Rule.usesMultifile, Rule.usesRuleChain
  • Rule.setUsesDFA, Rule.setUsesTypeResolution, Rule.setUsesMultifile
  • Implementations in AbstractRule and AbstractDelegateRule
• Old benchmark API, in n.s.pmd.benchmark:
  • Benchmark
  • Benchmarker
  • BenchmarkReport
  • BenchmarkResult
  • RuleDuration
  • StringBuilderCR
  • TextReport
• StringUtil members:
  • startsWithAny
  • isNotEmpty
  • isEmpty
  • isMissing
  • areSemanticEquals
  • replaceString (2 overloads)
  • substringsOf(2 overloads)
  • asStringOn (2 overloads)
  • lpad
• CollectionUtil members (IIRC some of these implementations should be moved to the eclipse plugin)
  • arraysAreEqual
  • valuesAreTransitivelyEqual
  • areEqual
  • areSemanticEquals
  • addWithoutDuplicates (2 overloads)
• Property constructors (it may make sense to deprecate some other ones too)
  • EnumeratedProperty<E>(String, String, String[], E[], int, float)
  • EnumeratedProperty<E>(String, String, String[], E[], int, Class<E>, float)
• PMDParameters. transformParametersIntoConfiguration
• net.sourceforge.pmd.pmd.dcd.graph.MemberNode.equals(...)
• ASTConstructorDeclaration.getParameters()
• deprecate Node's <T> void findDescendantsOfType(Class<T> targetType, List<T> results, boolean crossFindBoundaries)
• deprecate Node's <T> void findDescendantsOfType(Class<T> targetType, List<T> results, boolean crossFindBoundaries)
• add public <T> List<T> findDescendantsOfType(final Class<T> targetType, final boolean crossBoundaries) to Node
• Remove class net.sourceforge.pmd.util.log.ConsoleLogHandler entirely (see [core] Log only once all messages #1045)
  • deprecated on master
  • removed on pmd/7.0.x with bc6806d and [all] Use slf4j and SimpleLogger #3789
• Make net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.java.ast.ASTFormalParameter::setVarargs() package-private
  • Actually every setXX method of AST nodes that's only used by the parser should be made package private
• Remove class net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.java.xpath.TypeOfFunction entirely
• Remove all overloads of typeof from net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.java.xpath.JavaFunctions
• Remove isA, isEither and isNeither from net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.java.typeresolution.TypeHelper
• Remove CommentUtil (see [java] Deprecated CommentUtil, move implementation to AST Comment #1198, [java] Update comment rules for java #2802)
• Remove AbstractCommentRule.tagsIndicesIn() (see [java] Deprecated CommentUtil, move implementation to AST Comment #1198, [java] Update comment rules for java #2802)
• ASTImportDeclaration should no longer be a TypeNode
• ASTImportDeclaration's setImportOnDemand and setStatic should be made package-private
• Remove ASTConditionalExpression.setTernary and ASTConditionalExpression.isTernary
• Remove package net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.dfa.report (see [core] Deprecate ReportTree #1283)
• Remove deprecated apex visit(ApexNode<?>...) (see [apex] Fix class cast exceptions when using javadoc #1408)

Open

• Remove class net.sourceforge.pmd.cli.PMDParameters.RulePriorityConverter entirely (see [core] Fix JCommander help for -min option #1147)
  • deprecated on master
• RuleSetWriter.RULESET_NS_URI
  • deprecated on master
• net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.rule.RuleReference.RuleReference() (default constructor)
  • deprecated on master
• Remove pmd-core/src/main/resources/net/sourceforge/pmd/util/viewer/resources/viewer_strings.properties
  • it was used be the old ui viewer, which was removed with [ui] Remove old GUI applications (designerold, bgastviewer) #1431 already

Remaining tasks:

• Deprecated methods around (Abstract)PropertySource (see [core] Improvements and planned updates around PropertySource #1322)
  • moved to [core] Remove deprecated property concrete classes #4301