What would be a good alternative to inline Java documentation, i.e. can one have a separate docs file somehow mapped to a java source file?
I have never liked huge comment sections littered in code.
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why would you need this?– gnatCommented Oct 29, 2012 at 13:05
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3@downvotes looks like I've irritated the religious coders :)– S.D.Commented Oct 29, 2012 at 13:12
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3Kindly enlighten me about what in this question makes it impractical, unreal. I'll appreciate that too.– S.D.Commented Oct 29, 2012 at 13:23
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4it would be great if your question explained what kind of problems you're having with standard javadoc. As currently phrased, it's hard to tell whether there is a problem at all, making attempts to answer the question kind of a guessing game– gnatCommented Oct 29, 2012 at 13:30
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3The real problem with documenting code in a different file is that it is less likely to get updated. When a function changes, sometimes the documentation is not always updated to exactly match it. If the documentation is moved to a different file, there is now one extra step to making the correct change. It also make it less obvious that the documentation is wrong. You will only see it when you look specifically at the documentation, not when you scroll passed it in the code.– unholysamplerCommented Oct 29, 2012 at 13:38
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1 Answer
I have been using Javadoc feature of package comments to avoid littering source code with verbose documentation comments:
Package-Level Comments
With Javadoc 1.2, package-level doc comments are available. Each package can have its own package-level doc comment source file that The Javadoc tool will merge into the documentation that it produces. This file is named
package.html(and is same name for all packages). This file is kept in the source directory along with all the*.javafiles. (Do not put thepackages.htmlfile in the new doc-files source directory, because those files are only copied to the destination and are not processed.)The file package.html is an example of a package-level source file for
java.textand package-summary.html is the file that the Javadoc tool generates.The Javadoc tool processes
package.htmlby doing three things...
Using above feature, I had detailed verbose documentation for classes and methods in the package stored separately of code, in a dedicated html file. As for Javadoc comments in java files, I just wrote brief explanations there, adding text like
If needed, refer to package documentation for more details.
One thing I particularly liked about this was that although docs were in the separate file and in a format more convenient for large docs (html), it has been stored close enough to related source code and all the updates in it were automatically picked up during the build.
Starting from Java 1.5, you can alternatively put a package-info.java along with the classes of the package. This file should look like this:
/**
* Javadoc for your package here
*/
package com.yourpackage;
JLS documentation suggests that this is preferred way:
The following scheme is strongly recommended for file-system-based implementations: The sole annotated package declaration, if it exists, is placed in a source file called
package-info.javain the directory containing the source files for the package...It is recommended that
package-info.java, if it is present, take the place ofpackage.htmlfor javadoc and other similar documentation generation systems. If this file is present, the documentation generation tool should look for the package documentation comment immediately preceding the (possibly annotated) package declaration in package-info.java. In this way,package-info.javabecomes the sole repository for package-level annotations and documentation. If, in future, it becomes desirable to add any other package-level information, this file should prove a convenient home for this information.
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how do you find package-info.java from the perspective of actually writing the text, HTML tags, javadoc keywords etc? Is it clunky or is it not a problem?– AdamCommented Oct 15, 2015 at 9:19