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Chapter 27
Javadoc
You already know how to write comments in your classes, by using the // and /* … */ notations. These comments serve as documentation that is good mostly for the developer who is writing the class or new developers who will continue work on the class. There is another type of documentation in Java. This type is suitable if you are writing API that will be used by other people. You use the javadoc program that comes with the JDK and can be found under the bin directory of your JDK installation. By default, Javadoc generates HTML files that describe packages and types. Every single HTML file generated describes either a package or a type. Within a description of a type you can also describe methods and fields of the type, plus constructors of the type if the type is a class.
Figure 27.1: Java API documentation
The input to Javadoc is Java source files. Javadoc will be happy to overlook any compiler errors that may be present in the classes. This means, you can generate documentation even before the project is complete. The output by default is a set of HTML files, however you can customize javadoc to format output differently.
The chapters provides three topics of discussions.
- How to write documentation in your Java class,
- How to use javadoc to generate HTML files.