Some {@link} tags do not seem to generate hyperlinks

Question

Hi,
I am having some trouble getting some {@link} tags to generate hyperlinks. Specifically, {@link} tags to methods in classes in other packages. I've tried specifying the method arguments, including the fully qualified argument types, but I cannot get the output to generate hyperlinks.
In the example at the end of this post, I have a {@link} to a class as well as three {@link} tags to one of its methods. (Note the wrapping of the link tags in the example is due to the line length limits of the text area in which I entered this posting--they are NOT wrapped in the original code.) The hyperlink for the class gets generated. The method names all get expanded in the output to include their argument lists, so I know it's finding the methods, and the method names are in a fixed font, but they're not hyperlinks!
I didn't get any errors or warnings, and I'm using j2sdk1.4.1. I used the following command, with Sun's API package-list in the current directory (.) and generating the output to the html subdirectory:
javadoc -d html -linkoffline
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/api . DocTest.java
Any ideas what's wrong?
Thanks,
Robbie
P.S. I also included the HTML output at the end even though you can't see the hyperlink for the LayoutFocusTraversalPolicy class.
**** Example Program
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
* This is a class to test out javadoc links.
* <p>It uses class {@link javax.swing.LayoutFocusTraversalPolicy}
* <p>It uses the method:
* {@link javax.swing.LayoutFocusTraversalPolicy#getComponentAfter}
* <p>It uses the method:
* {@link javax.swing.LayoutFocusTraversalPolicy#getComponentAfter(Container,Component)}
* <p>It uses the method:
* {@link javax.swing.LayoutFocusTraversalPolicy#getComponentAfter(java.awt.Container,java.awt.Component)}
public class DocTest
public DocTest ()
*** Here is a cut-and-past of the HTML Output
*** Note that LayoutFocusTraversalPolicy class is a hyperlink in the
*** original HTML, but the three methods are not, but even the first
*** method has been expanded to include its arguments, so I know it's
*** finding the method name:
public class DocTest
extends Object
This is a class to test out javadoc links.
It uses class LayoutFocusTraversalPolicy
It uses the method: LayoutFocusTraversalPolicy.getComponentAfter(java.awt.Container, java.awt.Component)
It uses the method: LayoutFocusTraversalPolicy.getComponentAfter(Container,Component)
It uses the method: LayoutFocusTraversalPolicy.getComponentAfter(java.awt.Container,java.awt.Component)

Answer 1

Sadly, the -link option is broken in two severe ways in 1.4.1:
4652655 @link does not link to external -link'd classes
See bug report: http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4652655.html
4720957 link and -linkoffline creates wrong link to ../../../http&#058;//
See bug report: http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4720957.html
There are no known workarounds.
We believe we have fixed these for 1.4.2. The state of -link wasn't much better in 1.4.0.
Here are the major bugs in javadoc 1.4.1:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/relnotes.html#javadoc
and the major bugs in javadoc 1.4.0:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/relnotes.html#javadoc
The main -link bug in 1.4.0 appears to be this:
Links to external methods using -link or -linkoffline are not generated. No known workaround. Bug 4615751
-Doug Kramer
Javadoc team