How can I use "<" and ">" in javadoc without formatting?

Question

You can use < for < and > for > .

Recent versions of JavaDoc support {@literal A<B>C}; this outputs the content correctly (escaping the '<' and '>' in the generated HTML).

See http://download.oracle.com/javase/1.5.0/docs/guide/javadoc/whatsnew-1.5.0.html

Considering XML is actual code, I believe XML snippets in Javadoc are better suited for the {@code A<B>C} tag rather than the {@literal A<B>C} tag.

The {@code } tag uses a fixed-width font which makes its content standout as actual code.

Escape them as HTML: < and >

You only need to use the HTML equivalent for one of the angle brackets. The < can be represented as either < or <. Here's a sample taken from real Javadoc:

<pre>
&lt;complexType>
  &lt;complexContent>
    &lt;restriction base="{http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema}anyType">
      &lt;sequence>
      [...]

This displays as:

<complexType>
   <complexContent>
     <restriction base="{http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema}anyType">
       <sequence>

Interposition of <pre> and {@code} saves angle brackets and empty lines in javadocs and is widely used, see java.util.Stream for example.

<pre>{@code
   A<B>C

   D<E>F
}</pre>

Just surround it with {@code} like this:

{@code <xmlElement>}