java - How do I exclude a specific method/constructor from the results of the javadoc Ant task?

Question

I'm using javadocs generated by the javadoc Ant task to document a web service, and I want to exclude some constructors from the output. How do I do that?

Answer 1

There is no way to do this for public methods. The standard practice (even in quite a few JDK classes) is to indicate that the method or constructor is not meant for public use.

There is a plan to add an @exclude tag in the future:

@exclude - for API to be excluded from generation by Javadoc. Programmer would mark a class, interface, constructor, method or field with @exclude. Presence of tag would cause API to be excluded from the generated documentation. Text following tag could explain reason for exclusion, but would be ignored by Javadoc. (Formerly proposed as @hide, but the term "hide" is more appropriate for run-time dynamic show/hide capability.) For more discussion, see: Feature Request #4058216 in Developer Connection.