patch for ignoring whitespace between Javadoc and declarations

ChangeLog

@@ -1,3 +1,9 @@
+2001-12-03  Oliver Burn  <oliver@cortexebusiness.com.au>
+
+	* src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/VerifierImpl.java:
+	Included patch to ignore blank lines between Javadoc and the
+	declaration. From Lars kuehne [ lars _DOT_ kuehne _AT_ ppi _DOT_ de ].
+
 2001-11-26  Oliver Burn  <oliver@cortexebusiness.com.au>
 
 	* src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/java.g

src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/VerifierImpl.java

@@ -598,8 +598,25 @@ class VerifierImpl
      **/
     private String[] getJavadocBefore(int aLineNo)
     {
-        // #HACK#: should be improved to skip blank lines.
-        return (String[]) mComments.get(new Integer(aLineNo - 1));
+        int lineNo = aLineNo - 1;
+
+        // skip blank lines
+        while ((lineNo > 0) && lineIsBlank(lineNo)) {
+            lineNo--;
+        }
+
+        return (String[]) mComments.get(new Integer(lineNo));
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Checks if the specified line is blank.
+     * @param aLineNo the line number to check
+     * @return if the specified line consists only of tabs and spaces.
+     **/
+    private boolean lineIsBlank(int aLineNo)
+    {
+        // possible improvement: avoid garbage creation in trim()
+        return "".equals(mLines[aLineNo].trim());
     }
 
     /**

src/tests/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/InputWhitespace.java

@@ -39,4 +39,13 @@ class InputWhitespace
         catch(RuntimeException e){
         }
     }
+
+    /**
+       skip blank lines between comment and code,
+       should be ok
+    **/
+    
+    
+    private int mVar4 = 1;
+    
 }