No HTML replacement with a Doxygen \verbatim block for XML output

Question

The Problem

I have the following snippet in one of my headers:

/**
 * @brief Simple function.
 * 
 * @verbatim 
 *     don't want the following to be rendered as &lt: > or \> !
 * @endverbatim
 * 
 * This function skips all \<li\> elements.
 */
void simple(void) {}

I'm running Doxygen and on the XML output I'm getting:

<memberdef kind="function" id="simple8hpp_1a6624a5381d71ba485b6c59bc71214607" prot="public" static="no" const="no" explicit="no" inline="no" virt="non-virtual">
    <detaileddescription>
<para><verbatim>*     don&apos;t want the following to be rendered as &amp;lt: &gt; or \&gt; !
* </verbatim></para>
<para>This function skips all &lt;li&gt; elements. </para>
    </detaileddescription>
</memberdef>

In the <detaileddescription>, my original > got replaced by &gt. I do not want that. How can I configure Doxygen so that replacement doesn't happen?

I've tried using Doxygen 1.8.17 and 1.9.6 (c144c104ca2c0453cc5b19ce4c1b302cc2e4d929*), the result is the same.

According to this answer, the \verbatim block should not replace those. Also escaping with \< should also work.

Full Context

Doxygen is actually being called by Breathe. I'm trying to create a ReTxT reference like so:

/**
 * @brief Simple function.
 * 
 * @verbatim 
 *     don't want the following to be rendered as &lt: > or \> !
 * @endverbatim
 * 
 * @rstref2{my-reference-label, not the title here}
 * 
 * This function skips all \<li\> elements. This function skips all \verb{li} elements. This function skips all @verb{li} elements.
 * 
 */
void simple(void) {}

Breathe's help shows how to create a Doxygen alias:

breathe_doxygen_aliases = {
    'rstref{1}': r'\verbatim embed:rst:inline :ref:`\1` \endverbatim'
}

The example above creates a ReTxT cross-reference in the form:

It refers to the section itself, see :ref:`my-reference-label`.

I want to have a reference in the form:

It refers to the section itself, see :ref:`not the title here<my-reference-label>`.

So that not the title here is the link text.

I've tried to configure Breathe like so:

breathe_doxygen_aliases = {
    'rstref{1}': r'\verbatim embed:rst:inline :ref:`\1` \endverbatim',
    'rstref2{2}': r'\verbatim embed:rst:inline :ref:`\2<\1>` \endverbatim',
    'verb{1}' : r'\<\1\>'
}

Which yields the (apparently correct) following Doxygen config:

ALIASES += rstref{1}="\verbatim embed:rst:inline :ref:`\1` \endverbatim"
ALIASES += rstref2{2}="\verbatim embed:rst:inline :ref:`\2<\1>` \endverbatim"
ALIASES += verb{1}="\<\1\>"

But in the XML output the < and > are being replaced by &lt and &gt:

    <detaileddescription>
<para><verbatim>*     don&apos;t want the following to be rendered as &amp;lt: &gt; or \&gt; !
* </verbatim></para>
<para><verbatim>embed:rst:inline :ref:` not the title here&lt;my-reference-label&gt;` </verbatim></para>
<para>This function skips all &lt;li&gt; elements. This function skips all &lt;li&gt; elements. This function skips all &lt;li&gt; elements. </para>
    </detaileddescription>

Which breaks the subsequent ReTxT processing and I don't get a link. The rstref{1} alias works perfectly though:

<verbatim>embed:rst:inline :ref:`custom0_pe_convert` </verbatim>

I've tried escaping the <> symbols in the alias definition:

'rstref2{2}': r'\verbatim embed:rst:inline :ref:`\2\<\1\>` \endverbatim'

Which gives me:

ALIASES += rstref2{2}="\verbatim embed:rst:inline :ref:`\2\<\1\>` \endverbatim"

But the XML is still wrong:

<verbatim>embed:rst:inline :ref:` not the title here\&lt;my-reference-label\&gt;` </verbatim>

Update

I've tried using CDATA from the Doxygen example and this answer:

/// <summary>
/// A search engine.
/// </summary>
class Engine
{
  /// <summary>
  /// The Search method takes a series of parameters to specify the search criterion
  /// and returns a dataset containing the result set.
  // <![CDATA[ test > 17; ]]>
  /// </summary>
  /// <param name="connectionString">the connection string to connect to the
  /// database holding the content to search</param>
  /// <param name="maxRows">The maximum number of rows to
  /// return in the result set</param>
  /// <param name="searchString">The text that we are searching for</param>
  /// <returns>A DataSet instance containing the matching rows. It contains a maximum
  /// number of rows specified by the maxRows parameter</returns>
  public DataSet Search(string connectionString, int maxRows, int searchString)
  {
    DataSet ds = new DataSet();
    return ds;
  }
}

Unfortunately the Doxygen docs don't show an example on how to use CDATA

And I still get escaped XML:

<codeline lineno="34"><highlight class="normal"><sp/><sp/></highlight><highlight class="comment">//<sp/>&lt;![CDATA[<sp/>test<sp/>&gt;<sp/>17;<sp/>]]&gt;</highlight></codeline>

Any help us much appreciatted.

Cheers!