Problem submitted to Javadoc Forum
http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jsp?forum=41&thread=432943&tstart=0&trange=50

If I understand right the documentation, there is a major change
in the behaviour of the -tag option between 1.4.1 and 1.4.2:

New feature: The -tag option now allows dash (-) separator for xdoclet
              tags like @ejb:bean (4750173, stddoclet)

I had a minus (-) in the text which should replace the custom tag
(a range of years like 1983-2003).
I called javadoc like this:
jdk142/bin/javadoc.exe -tag my.tag:t:A-B" class1.java

But I get now the following messages:
class1.java:2: warning - @my.tag is an unknown tag.
Note: Custom tags that were not seen: @my.tag:t:A

What is the best way to pass a '-'?
It should also work with ant because I use it to generate my documentation.

The only workaround that I know of is to write your own taglet instead
of using the -tag option. Here is what I would use:

import com.sun.tools.doclets.standard.tags.SimpleTaglet;

public class Foo extends SimpleTaglet {
   public Foo() {
     super("my-tag", "My Tag:", "a");
   }
}

Then, when you run Javadoc, use:

-taglet <qualified name of your taglet> -tagletpath <path to your taglet>

I don't have time to test this code, but I believe it will work.

-Jamie

  xxxxx@xxxxx   wrote:

Here is the bug you are running into:

String seperator = args[1].indexOf(TagletManager.ALT_SIMPLE_TAGLET_OPT_SEPERATOR) == -1 ?
TagletManager.SIMPLE_TAGLET_OPT_SEPERATOR :
TagletManager.ALT_SIMPLE_TAGLET_OPT_SEPERATOR;

The doclet assumes that the seperator is "-" instead of ":".
This code was added in 1.4.2 t support tags like @my:tag.
I don't think anyone knew that people used tags like @my-tag.
This will have to be fixed in 1.5.

See the workaround.

  xxxxx@xxxxx   2003-09-10

Fixed.
  xxxxx@xxxxx   2003-11-15

What prevents it being fixed any sooner (e.g. the next 1.4.2
build)?
I find the reason given above ("support tags like @my:tag")
particularly ironic, since we (XDoclet) switched some time
ago from @my:tag to @my.tag as the preferred form of our
tags, to avoid these problems with : being used as the
separator...

It is not acceptable to not fix this fault for JDK 1.4.2.

Like many software houses, we are unable to use JDK 1.5 because our customers are using Application Servers that do not support it.

Can this fault please be fixed for JDK 1.4.2?