How to debug a custom doclet

Question

Hi,
Can an incorrect taglet name cause javadoc generation to crash/ hang?
We have a custon taglet with the name of @abc.comment
However, someone added a period at the end of the name by mistake: @abc.comment.
This caused the cruise control build to crash...
Any clues on why this would have happened would be helpful. Also, how do you debug a custom doclet?
Thanks in advance.
BB

Answer 1

Also, how do you debug a custom doclet?Well, the usual way: you use a debugger ;-)
Since Javadoc features a programmatic interface, it's easy to write a simple main class.
Here is my test entry class, just replace "your.doclet.name.here" with the actual name of your custom doclet.
TestRun requires a filename as sole argument/cmd option, this filename should point to a standard Javadoc options file. To successfully use TestRun, the classes that make up your custom doclet and the JDK tools.jar should (probably) be in the classpath.
* @(#) TestRun.java 1.00
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.StringTokenizer;
* <code>TestRun</code>
* @author Thomas Behr 27.11.2003
public class TestRun
    public static void main( final String[] args )
        if ( args.length != 1 || !(new java.io.File( args[0] )).isFile() )
            System.err.println( "usage: java TestRun <filename>" );
            return;
        com.sun.tools.javadoc.Main.execute( "javadoc",
                                            "your.doclet.name.here",
                                            processOptionsFile( args[0] ) );
    private static String[] processOptionsFile( final String filename )
        final String options = readOptionsFile( filename );
        final StringTokenizer tokens = new StringTokenizer( options );
        final String[] jargs = new String[tokens.countTokens()];
        for ( int i = 0; i < jargs.length; ++i )
            jargs[i] = tokens.nextToken();
        return jargs;
    private static String readOptionsFile( final String filename )
        final StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer();
        BufferedReader br = null;
        try
            br = new BufferedReader( new FileReader( filename ) );
            String line;
            while ( (line = br.readLine()) != null )
                buffer.append( line ).append( "\n" );
        catch ( final IOException ioe )
            ioe.printStackTrace();
            buffer.setLength( 0 );
        finally
            if ( br != null )
                try
                    br.close();
                catch ( IOException ioe )
                    ioe.printStackTrace();
        return buffer.toString();
}