How to avoid Eclipse importing a class when putting the class name in the comments, so that checkstyle does not complain later?

Question

Sometimes I put the class name in the comments of methods or class just for referencing. But eclipse does the import automatically and leaves an import statement in the file which causes "unused import" checkstyle errors later. Is there some configuration I can change to avoid eclipse automatically importing when I type the class name in the comments?

Answer 1

People don't agree whether this is a bug or not. Javadoc needs the imports to create appropriate links. I'd say checkstyle should provide an option (and Eclipse maybe too) to change the warning.

There are two relevant bug reports:

• eclipse
• checkstyle (now fixed)

Update: The mentioned bug has been fixed in checkstyle. You know have the option to configure the behavior.

Answer 2

If you use the fully-qualified class name in the JavaDoc, Eclipse will not add an import, e.g.

/**
 * This class is a {@link java.io.File} that blah blah blah
 */