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I see in MSDN links such as "CompareOrdinal Overloads". How can I write such a link in C#?

I tried:

<seealso cref="MyMethod">MyMethod Overloads</seealso>

But the compiler gives me a warning about being an ambiguous reference for the method which has other overloads.

(Beginner question: do I actually need to write this tag to link to the overloads, or is it automatically generated by documentation processors?)

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3 Answers 3

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15

To target specific members, I believe you just match the signature:

/// <seealso cref="Foo(int)"/>
static void Foo() { }
/// <seealso cref="Foo()"/>
/// <seealso cref="Foo(float)"/> <------ complains
static void Foo(int a) { }

To be honest, I'm not sure how to generate an "all overloads" link; I'd assume that any sensible generator did this automatically.

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2
  • Thanks. Does the generator you use do this automatically?
    – Hosam Aly
    Commented Jan 7, 2009 at 9:32
  • I don't actually use a generator; the xml alone is fine for my usage (it is used by both intellisense and reflector). I don't usually need standalone documentation.
    – Marc Gravell
    Commented Jan 7, 2009 at 11:07
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Using Sandcastle it is simple:

<seealso cref="overloads:FullyQualifiedMyMethod">MyMethod Overloads</seealso>

FullyQualifiedMyMethod is the complete route you need to reach the overload, including namespaces and classes, i.e.: System.Linq.Enumerable.Sum

However VB compiler issues a warning saying the attribute can not be resolved, which can be ignored.

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5
  • 4
    Testing with SHFB 2014.5.31.0 indicates that the prefix must be o:, not overloads:.
    – tm1
    Commented Aug 26, 2014 at 10:27
  • 1
    And C# compiler (tested for lang version 5.0) doesn’t issue a warning when using o:, so maybe that is the way to go.
    – binki
    Commented Oct 2, 2014 at 5:43
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    Tried with a see (rather than seealso) and had no luck at all. overloads: issues a compiler warning AND SHFB 14.5.31 ignores it. Also tried o: and M: and the compiler is okay but SHFB ignores them both.
    – Doug Clutter
    Commented Jun 8, 2015 at 18:38
  • I would like to say this should be the accepted answer, but then again OP didn't specify Sandcastle so, hmm... maybe not. Still very useful +1.
    – AnorZaken
    Commented Jun 18, 2017 at 15:46
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    Had problems referencing the overloads page, but finally i found the right syntax: What worked for me was using a big 'O', the full name of the method, and no parenthesis, like so: <see cref="O:My.Long.Namespace.Class.Method">Link name</see>.
    – Anders
    Commented Apr 24, 2021 at 20:09
5

Xml documentation doesn't have a means to reference all overloads of a method.

The most popular documentation generator for C# projects is Sandcastle. It will automatically create a link to an overloads list page if necessary. Hence in a members list page the name of an overloaded method will appear only once, clicking it will navigate you to the list of overloads page for that method and from there to a specific overload.

Placing a link to the overloads list page in Xml documentation would require intimate knowledge of the external tool being used and probably not a good idea.

If you really must have this then perhaps one way is to use an anchor with a specificaly formed ID. Most document generators provide some arcane means of pre or post processing generated files and should give you the opportunity to pick these anchors out and provide an appropriate href for them.

OTH, it may be more trouble than its worth ;)

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1
  • Sandcastle's behavior should be enough for me. Thanks for the info.
    – Hosam Aly
    Commented Jan 7, 2009 at 10:07

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