Regex don't allow matching non-word chars

[JuliusNmn]

i want to anonymize javadoc @author with a regex, but my regex @author .* fails to replace them. example:

/** a b c
* @author julius
*/

as i can see in source code, all terms are wrapped in \b tags, which fail to capture the @ character.
my workaround was to use author \w.* instead, which works well enough, but might match in places where it shouldn't.

proposed fix: don't wrap a regex in \b if it begins/ends in non-word characters?

[tdurieux]

I a aware of this, but the benefits are bigger than the drawbacks. For now, it will stay like this until I find a better solution.