Re: Selective javadoc

From:

Lew <lew@lewscanon.com>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:26:37 -0400

Message-ID:

<q6qdnRqs2aaD-UnanZ2dnUVZ_uDinZ2d@comcast.com>

Chris wrote:

We publish a library. Part of the API we'd like to document, and part of
it needs to remain closed.

I'd love to be able to put a tag in the Javadoc for a class that would
tell the Javadoc tool to generate the javadoc or not. It would also be
nice to include/exclude specific methods.

I can find nothing in the Javadoc docs that supports this. I'm wondering
if there is a fancy doclet out there that would do it?

$ javadoc -help
usage: javadoc [options] [packagenames] [sourcefiles] [@files]
  ...
-sourcepath <pathlist> Specify where to find source files
  ...
-exclude <pkglist> Specify a list of packages to exclude
  ...

Also, javadoc will exclude package-private classes by default. It's good
design anyway to keep such classes package-private and link them via an
accessible interface.

Same reasoning for methods - keep methods you don't want documented at private
or package-private access.

By judiciously combining inclusive parameters with exclusionary options one
can control javadoc pretty finely.

For a terse but complete description of the options, see
$ man javadoc

Even more at
<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/tools/solaris/javadoc.html>
<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/tools/windows/javadoc.html>

--
Lew