|
|
Эта страница руководства является частью версии 5.0 Инструментов XCodeПолучить эти инструменты:
Если Вы выполняете версию Инструментов XCode кроме 5,0, просматриваете документацию локально:
Читать страницы руководстваСтраницы руководства предназначаются как справочник для людей, уже понимающих технологию.
|
javadoc(1) javadoc(1)
NAME
javadoc - Java API documentation generator
SYNOPSIS
javadoc [ options ] [ packagenames ] [ sourcefilenames ] [ -subpackages pkg1:pkg2:... ] [ @argfiles
]
PARAMETERS
Arguments can be in any order.
options Command-line options, as specified in this document. To see a typical use of javadoc
options, see Real World Example.
packagenames A series of names of packages, separated by spaces, such as java.lang
java.lang.reflect java.awt. You must separately specify each package you want to doc-ument. document.
ument. The Javadoc tool uses -sourcepath to look for these package names. The
Javadoc tool does not recursively traverse subpackages. Wildcards such as asterisks
(*) are not allowed. See EXAMPLES, Documenting One or More Packages.
sourcefilenames
A series of source file names, separated by spaces, each of which can include paths
and wildcards such as asterisk (*). The Javadoc tool will process every file whose
name ends with .java , and whose name, when stripped of that suffix, is actually a
legal class name (see Identifiers). Therefore, you can name files with dashes (such
as X-Buffer), or other illegal characters, to prevent them from being documented.
This is useful for test files and files generated from templates. The path that pre-cedes precedes
cedes the source file name determines where javadoc will look for the file. The
Javadoc tool does not use -sourcepath to look for these source file names.) For exam-ple, example,
ple, passing in Button.java is identical to ./Button.java. An example source file
name with a full path is /home/src/java/awt/Graphics*.java. See EXAMPLES, Documenting
One or More Classes. You can also mix packagenames and sourcefilenames, as in EXAM-PLES, EXAMPLES,
PLES, Documenting Both Packages and Classes.
-subpackages pkg1:pkg2:...
Generates documentation from source files in the specified packages and recursively in
their subpackages. An alternative to supplying packagenames or sourcefilenames.
@argfiles One or more files that contain a list of Javadoc options, packagenames and sourcefile-names sourcefilenames
names in any order. Wildcards (*) and -J options are not allowed in these files.
DESCRIPTION
The Javadoc tool parses the declarations and documentation comments in a set of Java source files and
produces a corresponding set of HTML pages describing (by default) the public and protected classes,
nested classes (but not anonymous inner classes), interfaces, constructors, methods, and fields.
You can run the Javadoc tool on entire packages, individual source files, or both. In the first
case, you pass in as an argument to javadoc a series of package names. In the second case, you pass
in a series of source (.java) file names. See EXAMPLES at the end of this document.
NOTE - When you pass in package names to the Javadoc tool, it currently processes all .java
classes in the specified package directories, even if the .java files are code examples or
other classes that are not actually members of the specified packages. It does not parse each
.java file for a package declaration; we may add this parsing in a future release.
During a run, the Javadoc tool automatically adds cross-reference links to package, class and member
names that are being documented as part of that run. Links appear in several places:
• Declarations (return types, argument types, field types)
• "See Also" sections generated from @see tags
• In-line text generated from {@link} tags
• Exception names generated from @throws tags
• Specified by links to members in interfaces and Overrides links to members in classes
• Summary tables listing packages, classes and members
• Package and class inheritance trees
• The index
You can add hyperlinks to existing text for classes not included on the command line (but generated
separately) by way of the -link and -linkoffline options.
The Javadoc tool produces one complete document each time it is run; it cannot do incremental builds
- that is, it cannot modify or directly incorporate results from previous runs of Javadoc. However,
it can link to results from other runs, as just mentioned.
As implemented, the Javadoc tool requires and relies on the java compiler to do its job. The Javadoc
tool calls part of javac to compile the declarations, ignoring the member implementation. It builds
a rich internal representation of the classes, including the class hierarchy, and "use" relation-ships, relationships,
ships, then generates the HTML from that. The Javadoc tool also picks up user-supplied documentation
from documentation comments in the source code.
In fact, the Javadoc tool will run on .java source files that are pure stub files with no method bod-ies. bodies.
ies. This means you can write documentation comments and run the Javadoc tool in the earliest stages
of design while creating the API, before writing the implementation.
Relying on the compiler ensures that the HTML output corresponds exactly with the actual implementa-tion, implementation,
tion, which may rely on implicit, rather than explicit, source code. For example, the Javadoc tool
will document default constructors (section 8.6.7 of Java Language Specification) that are present in
the .class files but not in the source code.
In many cases, the Javadoc tool allows you to generate documentation from source files whose code is
incomplete or erroneous. This is a benefit that enables you to generate documentation before all
debugging and troubleshooting is done. For example, according to the Java Language Specification, a
class that contains an abstract method should itself be declared abstract. The Javadoc tool does not
check for this, and would proceed without a warning, whereas the javac compiler stops on this error.
The Javadoc tool does do some primitive checking of doc comments. Use the DocCheck doclet to check
the doc comments more thoroughly.
When the Javadoc tool builds its internal structure for the documentation, it loads all referenced
classes. Because of this, the Javadoc tool must be able to find all referenced classes, whether
bootstrap classes, extensions, or user classes. For more about this, see How Classes Are Found.
Generally speaking, classes you create must either be loaded as an extension or in the Javadoc tool's
class path.
javadoc Doclets
You can customize the content and format of the Javadoc tool's output by using doclets. The Javadoc
tool has a default "built-in" doclet, called the standard doclet, that generates HTML-formatted API
documentation. You can modify or subclass the standard doclet, or write your own doclet to generate
HTML, XML, MIF, RTF or whatever output format you'd like. Information about doclets and their use is
at the following locations:
• Javadoc Doclets
• The -doclet command-line option
When a custom doclet is not specified with the -doclet command line option, the Javadoc tool uses the
default standard doclet. The Javadoc tool has several command line options that are available
regardless of which doclet is being used. The standard doclet adds a supplementary set of command
line options. Both sets of options are described below in the options section.
Related Documentation and Doclets
• Javadoc Enhancements for details about improvements added in Javadoc 1.4.
• Javadoc FAQ for answers to common questions, information about Javadoc-related tools and work-arounds workarounds
arounds for bugs.
• How to Write Doc Comments for Javadoc for more information about Sun conventions for writing docu-mentation documentation
mentation comments.
• Requirements for Writing API Specifications - Standard requirements used when writing the Java 2
Platform Specification. It can be useful whether you are writing API specifications in source fiel
documentation comments or in other formats. It covers requirements for packages, classes, inter-faces, interfaces,
faces, fields and methods to stisfy testable assertions.
• Documentation Comments Specification - The original specification on documentation comments, Chap-ter Chapter
ter 18, Documentation Comments, in the Java Language Specification, First Edition, by James
Gosling, Bill Joy and Guy Steele. (This chapter was removed from the second edition.)
• DocCheck Doclet - Check doc comments in source files and generates a report listing the errors and
irregularities it finds. It is part of the Sun Doc Check Utilities.
• MIF Doclet - Can automate the generation of API documentation in MIF, FrameMaker and PDF formats.
MIF is Adobe FrameMaker's interchange format.
Terminology
A few terms have specific meanings within the context of the Javadoc tool:
generated document
The document generated by the javadoc tool from the doc comments in Java source code.
The default generated document is in HTML and is created by the standard doclet.
name A name in the Java Language, namely the name of a package, class, interface, field,
constructor, or method. A name can be fully-qualified, such as
java.lang.String.equals(java.lang.Object), or partially-qualified, such as
equals(Object).
documented classes
The classes and interfaces for which full documentation is generated during a javadoc
run. To be documented, the source files must be available, and either their source
filenames or package names must be passed into the javadoc command. We also refer to
these as the classes included in the javadoc run, or the included classes.
inlcuded classes
Classes and interfaces whose source filenames or package names are passed into the
javadoc command.
excluded classes
Classes and interfaces whose source filename or package names are not passed into the
javadoc command.
referenced classes
The classes and interfaces that are explicitly referred to in the definition (imple-mentation) (implementation)
mentation) or doc comments of the documented classes and interfaces. Examples of ref-erences references
erences include return type, parameter type, cast type, extended class, implemented
interface, imported classes, classes used in method bodies, @see, {@link},
{@linkplain}, and {@inheritDoc} tags. (Notice this definition has changed since 1.3.)
tags) do not qualify as referenced classes. When thE Javadoc tool is run, it should
load into memory all of the referenced classes in javadoc's bootclasspath and class-path. classpath.
path. (The Javadoc tool prints a "Class not found" warning for referenced classes not
found.) The Javadoc tool can derive enough information from the .class files to
determine their existence and the fully qualified names of their members.
external referenced classes
The referenced classes whose documentation not being generated during a javadoc run.
In other words, these classes are not passed into the Javadoc tool on the comand line.
Links for names in the generated documentation to those classes are said to be exter-nal external
nal references or external links. For example, if you run the Javadoc tool on only
the java.awt package, then any class in java.lang, such as Object, is an external ref-erenced referenced
erenced class. External referenced classes can be linked to using the -link and
-linkoffline options. An important property of an external referenced class is that
its source comments are normally not available to the Javadoc run. In this case, these
comments cannot be inherited.
Source Files
The Javadoc tool will generate output originating from four different types of "source" files: Java
language source files for classes (.java), package comment files, overview comment files, and miscel-laneous miscellaneous
laneous unprocessed files.
Class Source Code Files
Each class or interface and its members can have their own documentation comment, contained in a
.java file. For more details about these doc commments, see Documentation Comments below.
Package Comment Files
Each package can have its own documentation comment, contained in its own "source" file, that the
Javadoc tool will merge into the package summary page that it generates. You typically include in
this comment any documentation that applies to the entire package.
To create a package comment file, you must name it package.html and place it in the package directory
in the source tree along with the .java files. The Javadoc tool will automatically look for this
filename in this location. Notice that the filename is identical for all packages. For explicit
details, see the example of package.html.
The content of the package comment file is one big documentation comment, written in HTML, like all
other comments, with one exception: The documentation comment should not include the comment separa-tors separators
tors /** and */ or leading asterisks. When writing the comment, you should make the first sentence a
summary about the package, and not put a title or any other text between <body> and the first sen-tence. sentence.
tence. You can include package tags; as with any documentation comment, all tags except {@link} must
appear after the description. If you add a @see tag in a package comment file, it must have a fully
qualified name.
When the Javadoc tool runs, it automatically looks for this file; if found, the Javadoc tool does the
following:
• Copies all content between <body> and </body> tags for processing.
• Processes any package tags that are present.
• Inserts the processed text at the bottom of the package summary page it generates, as shown in
Package Summary.
• Copies the first sentence of the package comment to the top of the package summary page. It also
adds the package name and this first sentence to the list of packages on the overview page, as
shown in Overview Summary. The end-of-sentence is determined by the same rules used for the end of
the first sentence of class and member descriptions.
Overview Comment File
Each application or set of packages that you are documenting can have its own overview documentation
comment, kept in its own "source" file, that the Javadoc tool will merge into the overview page that
it generates. You typically include in this comment any documentation that applies to the entire
application or set of packages.
To create an overview comment file, you can name the file anything you want, typically overview.html,
and place it anywhere, typically at the top level of the source tree. Notice that you can have mul-tiple multiple
tiple overview comment files for the same set of source files, in case you want to run javadoc multi-ple multiple
ple times on different sets of packages. For example, if the source files for the java.applet pack-age package
age are contained in /home/user/src/java/applet directory, you could create an overview comment file
at /home/user/src/overview.html.
The content of the overview comment file is one big documentation comment, written in HTML, like the
package comment file described previously. See that description for details. To reiterate, when
writing the comment, you should make the first sentence a summary about the application or set of
packages, and not put a title or any other text between <body> and the first sentence. You can
include overview tags; as with any documentation comment, all tags except {@link} must appear after
the description. If you add a @see tag, it must have a fully-qualified name.
When you run the Javadoc tool, you specify the overview comment file name with the -overview option.
The file is then processed, similar to that of a package comment file:
• Copies all content between <body> and </body> tags for processing.
• Processes any overview tags that are present.
• Inserts the processed text at the bottom of the overview page it generates, as shown in Overview
Summary.
• Copies the first sentence of the overview comment to the top of the overview summary page.
Miscellaneous Unprocessed Files
You can also include in your source any miscellaneous files that you want the Javadoc tool to copy to
the destination directory. These typically include graphic files (for example, Java source (.java)
and class (.class) files) and self-standing HTML files whose content would overwhelm the documenta-tion documentation
tion comment of a normal Java source file.
To include unprocessed files, put them in a directory called doc-files, which can be a subdirectory
of any package directory. You can have one such subdirectory for each package. You might include
images, example code, source files, .class files, applets, and HTML files. For example, if you want
to include the image of a button button.gif in the java.awt.Button class documentation, you place
that file in the /home/user/src/java/awt/doc-files/ directory. Notice the doc-files directory should
not be located at /home/user/src/java/doc-files because java is not a package - that is, it does not
directly contain any source files.
All links to these unprocessed files must be hard-coded, because the Javadoc tool does not look at
the files - it simply copies the directory and all its contents to the destination. For example, the
link in the Button.java doc comment might look like:
/**
* This button looks like this:
* <img src="doc-files/Button.gif">
*/
Test Files and Template Files
Some developers have indicated they want to store test files and templates files in the source tree
near their corresponding source files. That is, they would like to put them in the same directory,
or a subdirectory, of those source files.
If you run the Javadoc tool by explicitly passing in individual sourcefilenames, you can deliberately
omit test and templates files andprevent them from being processed. However, if you are passing in
package names or wildcards, you need to follow certain rulesto ensure these test files and templates
files are not processed.
Test files differ from template files in that the former arelegal, compilable source files, while the
latter are not, but may end with ".java".
Test files -Often filesOften
Often developers want to put compilable, runnable test files for a given package in the same
directory as the source files for that package. But they want the test files to belong to a
package other than the source file package, such as the unnamed package (so test files have no
package statement or a different package statement from the source). In this scenario, when
the source is being documented by specifying its package name specified on the command line,
the test files will cause warnings or errors. You need to put such test files in a subdirec-tory. subdirectory.
tory. For example, if you want to add test files for source files in com.package1 put them in
a subdirectory that would be an invalid package name (because it contains a hyphen):
com/package1/test-files/
The test directory will be skipped by the Javadoc tool with no warnings.
If your test files contain doc comments, you can set up a separate run of the Javadoc tool to produce
documentation of the test files by passing in their test source filenames with wildcards, such as
com/package/ est-filesjava .
Tempaltes for source files -Template filesTemplate
Template files have names that often end in ".java" and are not compilable. If you have a tem-plate template
plate for a source file that you want to keep in the source directory, you can name it with a
dash (such as Buffer-Template.java ), or any other illegal Java character, to prevent it from
being processed. This relies on the fact that the Javadoc tool will only process sourcefiles
whose name, when stripped of the ".java" suffix, is actually a legal class name (see Identi-fiers Identifiers
fiers ).
Generated Files
By default, javadoc uses a standard doclet that generates HTML-formatted documentation. This doclet
generates the following kinds of files (where each HTML "page" corresponds to a separate file). Note
that javadoc generates files with two types of names: those named after classes/interfaces, and those
that are not (such as package-summary.html). Files in the latter group contain hyphens to prevent
file name conflicts with those in the former group.
Basic Content Pages
• One class or interface page (classname.html) for each class or interface it is documenting.
• One package page (package-summary.html) for each package it is documenting. The Javadoc tool
includes any HTML text provided in a file named package.html in the package directory of the source
tree.
• One overview page (overview-summary.html) for the entire set of packages. This is the front page
of the generated document. The Javadoc tool includes any HTML text provided in a file specified
with the -overview option. Note that this file is created only if you pass into javadoc two or
more package names. For further explanation, see HTML Frames below.
Cross-Reference Pages
• One class hierarchy page for the entire set of packages (overview-tree.html). To view this, click
on "Overview" in the navigation bar, then click on "Tree".
• One class hierarchy page for each package (package-tree.html). To view this, go to a particular
package, class or interface page; click "Tree" to display the hierarchy for that package.
• One "use" page for each package (package-use.html) and a separate one for each class and interface
(class-use/classname.html). This page describes what packages, classes, methods, constructors, and
fields use any part of the given class, interface, or package. Given a class or interface A, its
"use" page includes subclasses of A, fields declared as A, methods that return A, and methods and
constructors with parameters of type A. You can access this page by first going to the package,
class, or interface, then clicking on the "Use" link in the navigation bar.
• A deprecated API page (deprecated-list.html) listing all deprecated names. (A deprecated name is
not recommended for use, generally due to improvements, and a replacement name is usually given.
Deprecated APIs may be removed in future implementations.)
• A constant field values page (constant-values.html) for the values of static fields.
• A serialized form page (serialized-form.html) for information about serializable and externalizable
classes. Each such class has a description of its serialization fields and methods. This informa-tion information
tion is of interest to re-implementors, not to developers using the API. While there is no link in
the navigation bar, you can get to this information by going to any serialized class and clicking
"Serialized Form" in the "See also" section of the class description. The standard doclet automat-ically automatically
ically generates a serialized form page: any class (public or non-public) that implements Serializ-able Serializable
able is included, along with readObject and writeObject methods, the fields that are serialized,
and the doc comments from the @serial, @serialField, and @serialData tags. Public serializable
classes can be excluded by marking them (or their package) with @serial exclude, and package-pri-vate package-private
vate serializable classes can be included by marking them (or their package) with @serial include.
As of 1.4, you can generate the complete serialized form for public and private classes by running
javadoc without specifying the -private option.
• An index (index-*.html) of all class, interface, constructor, field and method names, alphabeti-cally alphabetically
cally arranged. This is internationalized for Unicode and can be generated as a single file or as
a separate file for each starting character (such as A-Z for English).
Support Files
• A help page (help-doc.html) that describes the navigation bar and the above pages. You can provide
your own custom help file to override the default using -helpfile.
• One index.html file that creates the HTML frames for display. This is the file you load to display
the front page with frames. This file itself contains no text content.
• Several frame files (*-frame.html) containing lists of packages, classes and interfaces, used when
HTML frames are being displayed.
• A package list file (package-list), used by the -link and -linkoffline options. This is a text
file, not HTML, and is not reachable through any links.
• A style sheet file (stylesheet.css) that controls a limited amount of color, font family, font
size, font style, and positioning on the generated pages.
• A doc-files directory that holds any image, example, source code, or other files that you want
copied to the destination directory. These files are not processed by the Javadoc tool in any man-ner, manner,
ner, that is, any javadoc tags in them will be ignored. This directory is not generated unless it
exists in the source tree.
HTML Frames
The Javadoc tool will generate either two or three HTML frames, as shown in the figure below. When
you pass source files (*.java) or a single package name as arguments into the javadoc command, it
creates only one frame (C) in the left-hand column, that is, the list of classes. When you pass into
javadoc two or more package names, it creates a third frame (P) listing all packages, as well as an
overview page (Detail). This overview page has the file name, overview-summary.html. Thus, this
file is created only if you pass in two or more package names. You can bypass frames by clicking on
the "No Frames" link or entering at overview-summary.html.
If you are unfamiliar with HTML frames, you should be aware that frames can have focus for printing
and scrolling. To give a frame focus, click on it. Then, on many browsers the arrow keys and page
keys will scroll that frame, and the print menu command will print it.
------------ ------------|C| -----------|C|
|C| Detail | |P| Detail |
| | | | | |
| | | |-| |
| | | |C| |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
------------ ------------javadoc -----------javadoc
javadoc *.java javadoc java.lang java.awt
Load one of the following two files as the starting page depending on whether you want HTML frames or
not:
• index.html (for frames)
• overview-summary.html (for no frames)
Generated File Structure
The generated class and interface files are organized in the same directory hierarchy as Java source
files and class files. This structure is one directory per subpackage.
For example, the document generated for the class java.applet.Applet would be located at
java/applet/Applet.html. The file structure for the java.applet package follows, given that the des-tination destination
tination directory is named apidocs. All files that contain the word "frame" appear in the upper-left upperleft
left or lower-left frames, as noted. All other HTML files appear in the right-hand frame.
NOTE: Directories are shown in bold. The asterisks (*) indicate the files and directories that are
omitted when the arguments to javadoc are source file names (*.java) rather than package names.
Also, when arguments are source file names, package-list is created but is empty. The doc-files
directory is not created in the destination unless it exists in the source tree.
apidocs Top directory
index.html Initial page that sets up HTML frames
* overview-summary.html Lists all packages with first sentence summaries
overview-tree.html Lists class hierarchy for all packages
deprecated-list.html Lists deprecated API for all packages
constant-values.html Lists values of static fields for all packages
serialized-form.html Lists serialized form for all packages
* overview-frame.html Lists all packages, used in upper-left frame
allclasses-frame.html Lists all package classes, lower-left frame
help-doc.html Lists user help for how pages are organized
index-all.html Default index created w/o -splitindex option
index-files Directory created with -splitindex option
index-<number>.html Index files created with -splitindex option
package-list Lists package names used only for resolving external refs
stylesheet.css HTML style sheet for defining fonts, colors, positions
java Package directory
applet Subpackage directory
Applet.html Page for Applet class
AppletContext.html Page for AppletContext interface
AppletStub.html Page for AppletStub interface
AudioClip.html Page for AudioClip interface
* package-summary.html Lists classes with first sentence summaries
* package-frame.html Lists package classes, lower left-hand frame
* package-tree.html Lists class hierarchy for this package
package-use Lists where this package is used
doc-files Directory holding image & example files
class-use Directory holding pages API is used
Applet.html Page for uses of Applet class
AppletContext.html Page for uses of AppletContext interface
AppletStub.html Page for uses of AppletStub interface
AudioClip.html Page for uses of AudioClip interface
src-html Source code directory
java Package directory
applet Subpackage directory
Applet.html Page for Applet source code
AppletContext.html Page for AppletContext source code
AppletStub.html Page for AppletStub source code
AudioClip.html Page for AudioClip source code
Generated API Declarations
The Javadoc tool generates a declaration at the start of each class, interface, field, constructor,
and method description. This declaration is the declaration for that API item. For example, the dec-laration declaration
laration for the Boolean class is:
public final class Boolean
extends Object
implements Serializable
and the declaration for the Boolean.valueOf method is:
public static Boolean valueOf(String s)
The Javadoc tool can include the modifiers public, protected, private, abstract, final, static, tran-sient, transient,
sient, and volatile, but not synchronized or native. These last two modifiers are considered imple-mentation implementation
mentation detail and not part of the API specification.
Rather than relying on the keyword synchronized, APIs should document their concurrency semantics in
the comment description, as in "a single Enumeration cannot be used by multiple threads concur-rently". concurrently".
rently". The document should not describe how to achieve these semantics. As another example, while
Hashtable should be thread-safe, there's no reason to specify that we achieve this by synchronizing
all of its exported methods. We should reserve the right to synchronize internally at the bucket
level, thus offering higher concurrency.
Documentation Comments
The original "Documentation Comments Specification" can be found under related documentation.
Commenting the Source Code
You can include documentation comments ("doc comments") in the source code, ahead of declarations for
any entity (classes, interfaces, methods, constructors, or fields). You can also create doc comments
for each package and another one for the overview, though their syntax is slightly different. Doc
comments are also known as Javadoc comments. A doc comment consists of the characters between the
characters /** that begin the comment and the characters */ that end it. Leading asterisks are
allowed on each line and are described further below. The text can continue onto multiple lines.
/**
* This is the typical format of a simple documentation comment
* that spans two lines.
*/
To save space you can put a comment on one line:
/** This comment takes up only one line. */
Placement of comments - Documentation comments are recognized only when placed immediately before
class, interface, constructor, method, or field declarations (see the class example, method example,
and field example). Documentation comments placed in the body of a method are ignored. Only one
documentation comment per declaration statement is recognized by the Javadoc tool.
A common mistake is to put an import statement between the class comment and the class declaration.
Avoid this, as javadoc will ignore the class comment.
/**
* This is the class comment for the class Whatever.
*/
import com.sun; // MISTAKE - Important not to put statement here
public class Whatever {
}
A comment is a description followed by tags - The description begins after the starting delimiter /**
and continues until the tag section. The tag section starts with the first character @ that begins a
line (ignoring leading asterisks and white space). It is possible to have a comment with only tags
and no description. The description cannot continue after the tag section begins. The argument to a
tag can span multiple lines. There can be any number of tags - some types of tags can be repeated
while others cannot. This @see starts the tag section:
/**
* This is a doc comment.
* @see java.lang.Object
*/
Standard and in-line tags - A tag is a special keyword within a doc comment that the Javadoc tool can
process. The Javadoc tool has standalone tags, which appear as @tag, and in-line tags, which appear
within braces, as {@tag}. To be interpreted, a standalone tag must appear at the beginning of a
line, ignoring leading asterisks, white space and comment separator (/**). This means you can use
the @ character elsewhere in the text and it will not be interpreted as the start of a tag. If you
want to start a line with the @ character and not have it be interpreted, use the HTML entity @.
Each standalone tag has associated text, which includes any text following the tag up to, but not
including, either the next tag, or the end of the doc comment. This associated text can span multiple
lines. An in-line tag is allowed and interpreted anywhere that text is allowed. The following exam-ple example
ple contains the standalone tag @deprecated and in-line tag {@link}.
/**
* @deprecated As of JDk 1.1, replaced by {@link #setBounds(int,int,int,int)}
*/
Comments are written in HTML - The text must be written in HTML, in that they should use HTML enti-ties entities
ties and HTML tags. You can use whichever version of HTML your browser supports; we have written the
standard doclet to generate HTML 3.2-compliant code elsewhere (outside of the documentation comments)
with the inclusion of cascading style sheets and frames. (We preface each generated file with "HTML
4.0" because of the frame sets.)
For example, entities for the less-than (<) and greater-than (>) symbols should be written < and
>. Likewise, the ampersand (&) should be written &. The bold HTML tag <b> is shown in the
following example:
/**
* This is a <b>doc</b> comment.
* @see java.lang.Object
*/
Leading asterisks - When javadoc parses a doc comment, leading asterisk (*) characters on each line
are discarded; blanks and tabs preceding the initial asterisk (*) characters are also discarded. If
you omit the leading asterisk on a line, all leading white space is removed. Therefore, you should
not omit leading asterisks if you want leading white space to be kept, such as when indenting sample
code with the <pre> tag.
First sentence - The first sentence of each doc comment should be a summary sentence, containing a
concise but complete description of the declared entity. This sentence ends at the first period that
is followed by a blank, tab, or line terminator, or at the first standalone tag. The Javadoc tool
copies this first sentence to the member summary at the top of the HTML page.
Declaration with multiple fields - Java allows declaring multiple fields in a single statement, but
this statement can have only one documentation comment, which is copied for all fields. Therefore,
if you want individual documentation comments for each field, you must declare each field in a sepa-rate separate
rate statement. For example, the following documentation comment doesn't make sense when written as
a single declaration and would be better handled as two declarations:
/**
* The horizontal and vertical distances of point (x,y)
*/
public int x, y; // Avoid this
The Javadoc tool generates the following documentation from the above code:
public int x
The horizontal and vertical distances of point (x,y).
public int y
The horizontal and vertical distances of point (x,y).
Use header tags carefully - When writing documentation comments for members, it is best not to use
HTML heading tags such as <H1> and <H2>, because the Javadoc tool creates an entire structured docu-ment document
ment and these structural tags can interfere with the formatting of the generated document. However,
it is fine to use these headings in class and package comments to provide your own structure.
Automatic Reuse of Method Comments
The Javadoc tool has the ability to automatically reuse or "inherit" method comments in classes and
interfaces. When a description, or @return, @param, @see or @throws tag is missing from a method com-ment, comment,
ment, the Javadoc tool instead copies the corresponding description or tag comment from the method it
overrides or implements (if any), according to the algorithm below.
More specifically, when a @param tag for a particular parameter is missing, then the comment for that
parameter is copied. When an @throws tag for a particular exception is missing, the @throws tag is
copied only if that exception is declared.
This behavior contrasts with version 1.3 and earlier, where the presence of any description or tag
would prevent all comments from being inherited.
Also of interest, is the inline tag {@inheritDoc} is present in a description or any tag, the corre-sponding corresponding
sponding description or tag is copied at that spot.
The overridden method must be a member of a documented class, and not an external referenced class
for the doc comment to actually be available to copy.
Inheriting of comments occurs in three cases:
• When a method in a class overrides a method in a superclass
• When a method in an interface overrides a method in a superinterface
• When a method in a class implements a method in an interface
In the first two cases, for method overrides, the Javadoc tool generates a subheading "Overrides" in
the documentation for the overriding method, with a link to the method it is overriding.
In the third case, when a method in a given class implements a method in an interface, the Javadoc
tool generates a subheading "Specified by" in the documentation for the overriding method, with a
link to the method it is implementing.
Algorithm for Inheriting Method Descriptions If a method does not have a doc comment, the Javadoc
tool searches for an applicable comment using the following algorithm, which is designed to find the
most specific applicable doc comment, giving preference to interfaces over superclasses:
1. Look in each directly implemented (or extended) interface in the order they appear following the
word implements (or extends) in the method declaration. Use the first doc comment found for this
method.
2. If step 1 failed to find a doc comment, recursively apply this entire algorithm to each directly
implemented (or extended) interface, in the same order they were examined in step 1.
3. If step 2 failed to find a doc comment and this is
a class other than Object (not an interface):
a. If the superclass has a doc comment for this method, use it.
b. If step 3a failed to find a doc comment, recursively apply this
entire algorithm to the superclass.
javadoc Tags
The Javadoc tool parses special tags when they are embedded within a Java doc comment. These doc
tags enable you to autogenerate a complete, well-formatted API from your source code. The tags start
with an "at" sign (@) and are case-sensitive - they must be typed with the uppercase and lowercase
letters as shown. A tag must start at the beginning of a line (after any leading spaces and an
optional asterisk) or it is treated as normal text. By convention, tags with the same name are
grouped together. For example, put all @see tags together.
Tags come in two types:
• Standalone tags - Can be placed only in the tag section that follows the desription. There tags are
not set off with curly braces: @tag.
• Inline tags - Can be placed anywhere in the comments description or in the comments for standalone
tags. Inline tags are set off with curly braces:{@tag}.
For information about tags we might introduce in future releases, see Proposed Tags.
The current tags are:
+--------------+-------------+
| Tag | Introduced |
| | in JDK |
+--------------+-------------+
|@author | 1.0 |
|{@code} | 1.5 |
|{@docRoot} | 1.3 |
|@deprecated | 1.0 |
|@exception | 1.0 |
|{@inheritDoc} | 1.4 |
|{@link} | 1.2 |
|{@linkplain} | 1.4 |
|{@literal} | 1.5 |
|@param | 1.0 |
|@return | 1.0 |
|@see | 1.0 |
|@serial | 1.2 |
|@serialData | 1.2 |
|@serialField | 1.2 |
|@since | 1.1 |
|@throws | 1.2 |
|{@value} | 1.4 |
|@version | 1.0 |
+--------------+-------------+
For custom tags, see the -tag option.
@author name-text
Adds an "Author" entry with the specified name-text to the generated docs when the -author
option is used. A doc comment may contain multiple @author tags. You can specify one name
per @author tag or multiple names per tag. In the former case, the Javadoc tool inserts a
comma (,) and space between names. In the latter case, the entire text is simply copied to
the generated document without being parsed. Therefore, use multiple names per line if you
want a localized name separator other than a comma.
@deprecated deprecated-text
Adds a comment indicating that this API should no longer be used (even though it might con-tinue continue
tinue to work). javadoc moves the deprecated-text ahead of the description, placing it in
italics and preceding it with a bold warning: "Deprecated".
The first sentence of deprecated-text should at least tell the user when the API was depre-cated deprecated
cated and what to use as a replacement. javadoc copies just the first sentence to the summary
section and index. Subsequent sentences can also explain why it has been deprecated. You
should include a {@link} tag (for javadoc 1.2 or later) that points to the replacement API:
• For javadoc 1.2, use a {@link} tag. This creates the link in-line, where you want it. For
example:
/**
* @deprecated As of JDK 1.1, replaced by
* {@link #setBounds(int,int,int,int)}
*/
• For javadoc 1.1, the standard format is to create a @see tag (which cannot be in-line) for
each @deprecated tag.
For more about deprecation, see the @deprecated tag.
{@code text}
Equivalent to <code>{@literal}</code> .
Displays text in code font without interpreting the text as HTML markup or nested javadoc tags. This
enables you to use regular angle brackets ( < and > ) instead of the HTML entities ( < and > )
in doc comments, such as in parameter types ( <Object> ), inequalities ( 3 < 4 ), or arrows ( <- ).
For example, the doc comment text:
{@code A<B>C}
displays in the generated HTML page unchanged as:
A<B>C
The noteworthy point is that the <B> is not interpreted as boldand is in code font.
If you want the same functionality without the code font, use {@literal}.
{@docRoot}
Represents the relative path to the generated document's (destination) root directory from any
generated page. It is useful when you want to include a file, such as a copyright page or
company logo, that you want to reference from all generated pages. Linking to the copyright
page from the bottom of each page is common.
This {@docRoot} tag can be used both on the command line and in a doc comment:
1. On the command line, where the header/footer/bottom are defined:
javadoc -bottom '<a href="{@docRoot}/copyright.html">Copyright</a>'
NOTE - When using {@docRoot} this way in a make file, some makefile programs require special
escaping for the brace {} characters. For example, the Inprise MAKE version 5.2 running on
Windows requires double braces: {{@docRoot}}. It also requires double (rather than single)
quotes to enclose arguments to options such as -bottom (with the quotes around the href argu-ment argument
ment omitted).
2. In a doc comment:
/**
* See the <a href="{@docRoot}/copyright.html">Copyright</a>.
*/
The reason this tag is needed is because the generated docs are in hierarchical directories,
as deep as the number of subpackages. This expression:
<a href="{@docRoot}/copyright.html">
would resolve to:
<a href="../../copyright.html"> ... for java/lang/Object.java
and
<a href="../../../copyright.html"> ... for java/lang/ref/Reference.java
@exception class-name description
The @exception tag is a synonym for @throws.
{@inheritDoc}
Inherits documentation from the nearest superclass into the current doc comment. This allows
comments to be abstracted up the inheritance tree, and enables developers to write around the
copied text. Also see inheriting comments.
This tag can be placed in two positions:
• In the comment body (before the first standalone tag), where it will copy the entire comment
body from its superclass.
• In the text argument of a standalone tag, where it will copy the text of the tag from its
superclass.
{@link " package.class#member label" }
Inserts an in-line link with visible text label that points to the documentation for the spec-ified specified
ified package, class or member name of a referenced class.
This tag is very similar to @see - both require the same references and accept exactly the
same syntax for package.class#member and label. The main difference is that {@link} generates
an in-line link rather than placing the link in the "See Also" section. Also, the {@link} tag
begins and ends with curly braces to separate it from the rest of the in-line text. If you
need to use "}" inside the label, use the HTML entity notation }
There is no limit to the number of {@link} tags allowed in a sentence. You can use this tag
in the description part of a documentation comment or in the text portion of any tag (such as
@deprecated, @return, or @param).
For example, here is a comment that refers to the getComponentAt(int, int) method:
Use the {@link #getComponentAt(int, int) getComponentAt} method.
>From this, the standard doclet would generate the following HTML (assuming it refers to
another class in the same package):
Use the
<a href="Component.html#getComponentAt(int, int)">\
getComponentAt</a>method.
which appears on the web page as:
Use the getComponentAt method.
You can extend {@link} to link to classes not being documented by using the -link otion.
{@linkplain " package.class#member label"}
Indentical to {@link}, except the link's label is displayed in plain text than code font. Use-ful Useful
ful when the label is plain text. Example:
Refer to {@linkplain add() the overridden method}.
This would display as
Refer to the overridden method.
{@literal text}
Displays text without interpreting the text as HTML markup or nested javadoc tags. This
enables you to use regular angle brackets ( < and > ) instead of the HTML entities ( < and
> ) in doc comments, such as in parameter types ( <Object> ), inequalities ( 3 < 4 ), or
arrows ( <- ). For example, the doc comment text:
{@literal A<B>C}
displays unchanged in the generated HTML page in your browser, as:
A<B>C
The noteworthy point is that the <B> is not interpreted as bold(and it is not in code font).
If you want the same functionality but with the text in code font, use {@code} .
@param parameter-name description
Adds a parameter with the specified parameter-name followed by the specified description to
the "Parameters" section. When writing the doc comment, you may continue the description onto
multiple lines. This tag is valid only in a doc comment for a method, constructor or class.
The parameter-name can be the name of a parameter in a method or constructor, or the name of a type
parameter of a class. Use angle brackets around this parametername to specify the use of a type
parameter, such as:
,nf /** * @param <E> Type of element stored in a list */ public interface List<E> extends Col-lection<E> Collection<E>
lection<E> { }
For more details, see writing @param tags.
@return description
Adds a "Returns" section with the description text. This text should describe the return type
and permissible range of values.
@see <a href='URL#value'>label</a>
Adds a link as defined by URL#value. The URL#value is a relative or absolute URL. The Javadoc
tool distinguishes this from other cases by looking for a less-than symbol (<) as the first
character. For example:
@see <a href="spec.html#section">Java Spec</a>
This generated a link such as:
See Also: "Java Spec"
@see string
Adds a text entry for string. No link is generated. The string is a book or other reference
to information not available by URL. The Javadoc tool distinguishes this from the previous
cases by looking for a double-quote (") as the first character. For example:
@see "The Java Programming Language"
This generates text such as:
See Also:
"The Java Programming Language"
@see <a href="URL#value">label</a>
Adds a link as defined by URL#value. The URL#value is a relative or absolute URL. The Javadoc
tool distinguishes this from other cases by looking for a less-than symbol (<) as the first
character. For example:
@see <a href="spec.html#section">Java Spec</a>
This generates a link such as:
See Also:
Java Spec
@see package.class#member label
Adds a link, with visible text label, that points to the documentation for the specified name
in the Java Language that is referenced. The label is optional; if omitted, the name appears
instead as the visible text, suitably shortened (see How a Name Is Displayed). Use the label
when you want the visible text to be abbreviated or different from the name.
In version 1.2, just the name but not the label would automatically appear in <code> HTML
tags. Starting with 1.2.2, the <code> is always included around the visible text, whether or
not a label is used.
• package.class#member is any valid name in the Java Language that is referenced (package,
class, interface, constructor, method, or field name), except that you replace the dot ahead
of the member name with a hash character (#). If this name is in the documented classes,
the Javadoc tool will automatically create a link to it. To create links to external refer-enced referenced
enced classes, use the -link option. Use either of the other two @see forms for referring
to documentation of a name that does not belong to a referenced class. This argument is
described at greater length below under Specifying a Name.
• label is optional text that is visible as the link's label. The label can contain white
space. If a label is omitted, then package.class.member will appear, suitably shortened
relative to the current class and package (see How a Name Is Displayed).
• A space is the delimiter between package.class#member and label. A space inside parentheses
does not indicate the start of a label, so spaces can be used between parameters in a
method.
Example - In this example, an @see tag (in the Character class) refers to the equals method in
the String class. The tag includes both arguments, that is, the name "String#equals(Object)"
and the label "equals":
/**
* @see String#equals(Object) equals
*/
The standard doclet produces HTML something like this:
<dl>
<dt><b>See Also:</b>
<dd><a href="../../java/lang/String#equals\
(java.lang.Object)"><code>equals</code></a>
</dl>
The above looks something like this in a browser, where the label is the visible link text:
See Also:
equals
Specifying a Name - This package.class#member name can be either fully qualified, such as
java.lang.String#toUpperCase(), or not, such as String#toUpperCase() or #toUpperCase(). If
less than fully-qualified, the Javadoc tool uses the normal Java compiler search order to find
it, further described below in Search order for @see. The name can contain whitespace within
parentheses, such as between method arguments.
Of course the advantage to providing shorter, "partially-qualified" names is that they are
less to type and less clutter in the source code. The following table shows the different
forms of the name, where Class can be a class or interface, Type can be a class, interface,
array, or primitive, and method can be a method or constructor.
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Typical forms for @see package.class#member |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|Referencing a member of the current class |
|@see #field |
|@see #method(Type, Type,...) |
|@see #method(Type argname, Type argname,...) |
|Referencing another class in the current or imported |
|packages |
|@see Class#field |
|@see Class#method(Type, Type,...) |
|@see Class#method(Type argname, Type argname,...) |
|@see Class |
|Referencing another package (fully qualified) |
|@see package.Class#field |
|@see package.Class#method(Type, Type,...) |
|@see package.Class#method(Type argname, Type argname,...) |
|@see package.Class |
|@see package |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
The following notes apply to the above table:
• The first set of forms (with no class or package) will cause the Javadoc tool to search only
through the current class's hierarchy. It will find a member of the current class or inter-face, interface,
face, one of its superclasses or superinterfaces, or one of its enclosing classes or inter-faces interfaces
faces (search steps 1-3). It will not search the rest of the current package or other pack-ages packages
ages (search steps 4-5).
• If any method or constructor is entered as a name with no parentheses, such as getValue, and
if no field with the same name exists, the Javadoc tool will correctly create a link to it,
but will print a warning message reminding you to add the parentheses and arguments. If
this method is overloaded, the Javadoc tool links to the first method that its search
encounters, which is unspecified.
• Nested classes must be specified as outer.inner, not only inner, for all forms.
• As stated, the hash character (#), rather than a dot (.), separates a member from its class.
This enables the Javadoc tool to resolve ambiguities, since the dot also separates classes,
nested classes, packages, and subpackages. However, the Javadoc tool is generally lenient
and will properly parse a dot if you know there is no ambiguity, though it will print a
warning.
Search Order for @see: The Javadoc tool will process an @see tag that appears in a source file
(.java), package file (package.html), or overview file (overview.html). In the latter two
files, you must fully qualify the name you supply with @see. In a source file, you can spec-ify specify
ify a name that is fully qualified or partially qualified.
When the Javadoc tool encounters an @see tag in a .java file that is not fully qualified, it
searches for the specified name in the same order as the Java compiler would (except the
Javadoc tool will not detect certain namespace ambiguities, since it assumes the source code
is free of these errors). This search order is formally defined in Chapter 6, "Names" of the
Java Language Specification, Second Edition. The Javadoc tool searches for that name through
all related and imported classes and packages. In particular, it searches in this order:
1. The current class or interface
2. Any enclosing classes and interfaces, searching closest first
3. Any superclasses and superinterfaces, searching closest first
4. The current package
5. Any imported packages, classes and interfaces, searching in the order of the import state-ment statement
ment
The Javadoc tool continues to search recursively through steps 1-3 for each class it encoun-ters encounters
ters until it finds a match. That is, after it searches through the current class and its
enclosing class E, it searches through E's superclasses before E's enclosing classes. In
steps 4 and 5, the Javadoc tool does not search classes or interfaces within a package in any
specified order (that order depends on the particular compiler). In step 5, the Javadoc tool
will look in java.lang,sincethatisautomatically imported by all programs.
The Javadoc tool won't necessarily look in subclasses, nor will it look in other packages even
if their documentation is being generated in the same run. For example, if the @see tag is in
java.awt.event.KeyEvent class and refers to a name in the java.awt package, javadoc will not
look in that package unless that class imports it.
How a Name is Displayed - If label is omitted, then package.class.member will appear. In gen-eral, general,
eral, it will be suitably shortened relative to the current class and package. By "short-ened", "shortened",
ened", we mean the Javadoc tool will display only the minimum name necessary. For example, if
the String.toUpperCase() method contains references to a member of the same class and to a
member of a different class, the class name will be displayed only in the latter case:
Type Example Displays As
of
Ref-erence Reference
erence
@see tag @see toLowerCase()
refers String#toLowerCase() (omits the class name)
to
member
of
the
same
class
@see @see Character.toLowerCase(char)
tag Character#toLowerCase(char) (includes the class name)
refers
to
member
of a
differ-ent different
ent
class
Examples of @see: The comment to the right shows how the name would be displayed if the @see
tag is in a class in another package, such as java.applet.Applet:
Example See also:
@see java.lang.String // String
@see java.lang.String The String class // The String class
@see String // String
@see String#equals(Object) // String.equals(Object)
@see String#equals // String.equals\
(java.lang.Object)
@see java.lang.Object#wait(long) // java.lang.Object.\
wait(long)
@see Character#MAX_RADIX // Character.MAX_RADIX
@see <a href="spec.html">Java Spec</a> // Java Spec
@see "The Java Programming Language" // "The Java Programming \
Language"
You can extend @see to link to classes not being documented
by using the -link option.
@since since-text
Adds a "Since" heading with the specified since-text to the generated documentation. The text
has no special internal structure. This tag means that this change or feature has existed
since the software release specified by the since-text. For example:
@since 1.4
For source code in the Java platform, this tag indicated the version of the Java platform API speci-fication specification
fication (not necessarily when it was added to the reference implementation).
@serial field-description|include|exclude
Used in the doc comment for a default serializable field.
An optional field-description augments the doc comment for the field. The combined descrip-tion description
tion must explain the meaning of the field and list the acceptable values. If needed, the
description can span multiple lines. The standard doclet adds this information to the serial-ized serialized
ized form page.
The include and exclude arguments identify whether a class or package should be included or
excluded from the serialized form page. They work as follows:
• A public or protected class that implements
Serializable is included unless the class (or its package) is marked @serial exclude.
• A private or package-private class that implements
Serializable is excluded unless that class (or its package) is marked @serial include.
Examples: The javax.swing package is marked @serial exclude (in package.html). The public
class java.sercurity.BasicPermission is marked @serial exclude. The package-private class
java.util.PropertyPermissionCollection is marked @serial include.
The tag @serial at a class level overrides @serial at a package level.
For more information about how to use these tags, along with an example, see "Documenting
Serializable Fields and Data for a Class," Section 1.6 of the Java Object Serialization Speci-fication. Specification.
fication. Also see the "Serialization FAQ," which covers the questions, "Why do I see javadoc
warnings stating that I am missing @serial tags? for private fields if I am not running
javadoc with the -private switch?"
@serialField field-name field-type field-description
Documents an ObjectStreamField component of a Serializable class's serialPersistentFields mem-ber. member.
ber. One @serialField tag should be used for each ObjectStreamField component.
@serialData data-description
The data-description documents the types and order of data in the serialized form. Specifi-cally, Specifically,
cally, this data includes the optional data written by the writeObject method and all data
(including base classes) written by the Externalizable.writeExternal method.
The @serialData tag can be used in the doc comment for the writeObject, readObject, writeEx-ternal, writeExternal,
ternal, and readExternal methods.
@throws class-name description
The @throws and @exception tags are synonyms. Adds a "Throws" subheading to the generated
documentation, with the class-name and description text. The class-name is the name of the
exception that may be thrown by the method. If this class is not fully specified, the Javadoc
tool uses the search order to look up this class. Multiple @throws tags can beused in a given
doc comment for the same or different exceptions.
To ensure that all checked exceptions are documented, if a @throws tag does not exist for an excep-tion exception
tion inthe throws clause, the Javadoc tool automatically adds that exception to the HTML output (with
no description) as if it were documented with @throws tag.
The @throws documentation is copied from an overridden method to a subclass only when the exception
is explicitly declared in the overridden method. The same is true for copying from an interfacemethod
to an implementing method. You can use {@inheritDoc} to force@throws to inherit documentation.
For more details, see Writing @throws tags.
{@value package.class#field}
When {@value} is used (without any argument) in the doc command of a static field, it displays
the value of that constant:
/**
* The value of this constant is {@value}.
*/
public static final String SCRIPT_START = "<script>"
When used with argument package.class#field in any doc comment, it displays the value of the speci-fied specified
fied constant:
/**
* Evaluates the script starting with {@value #SCRIPT_START}.
*/
public String evalScript(String script) {
}
The argument package.class#field takes a form identical to that of the @see argument, except that the
member must be a static field.
These values of these constants are also displayed on the Constant Field Values page.
@version version-text
Adds a "Version" subheading with the specified version-text to the generated docs when the
-version option is used. The text has no special internal structure. A doc comment may con-tain contain
tain at most one @version tag. Version normally refers to the version of the software (such
as the Java 2 SDK) that contains this class or member.
Where Tags Can Be Used
The following sections describe where the tags can be used. Notice that these four tags can be used
in all doc comments: @see, @link, @since, @deprecated.
Overview Documentation Tags
Overview tags are tags that can appear in the documentation comment for the overview page, which
resides in the source file typically named (overview.html). Like any other documentation comments,
these tags must appear after the description.
NOTE: The {@link} tag has a bug in overview documents in version 1.2. Text appears properly but has
no link. The {@docRoot} tag does not currently work in overview documents.
+--------------+
|Overview Tags |
+--------------+
|@see |
|@since |
|@author |
|@version |
|{@link} |
|{@linkplain} |
|{@docRoot} |
+--------------+
Package Documentation Tags
Package tags are tags that can appear in the documentation comment for a package (which resides in
the source file named package.html). The @serial tag can only be used here with the include or
exclude argument.
+-------------+
|Package Tags |
+-------------+
|@see |
|@since |
|@deprecated |
|@serial |
|@author |
|{@link} |
|{@linkplain} |
|{@docRoot} |
+-------------+
Class and Interface Documentation Tags
The following are tags that can appear in the documentation comment for a class or interface. The
@serial tag can only be used here with the include or exclude argument.
+---------------------+
|Class/Interface Tags |
+---------------------+
|@see |
|@since |
|@deprecated |
|@serial |
|@author |
|@version |
|{@link} |
|{@linkplain} |
|{@docRoot} |
+---------------------+
An example of a class comment:
/**
* A class representing a window on the screen.
* For example:
* <pre>
* Window win = new Window(parent);
* win.show();
* </pre>
*
* @author Sami Shaio
* @version 1.8, 06/24/04
* @see java.awt.BaseWindow
* @see java.awt.Button
*/
class Window extends BaseWindow {
}
Field Documentation Tags
The following are the tags that can appear in the documentation comment for a field.
+-------------+
| Field Tags |
+-------------+
|@see |
|@since |
|@deprecated |
|@serial |
|@serialField |
|{@link} |
|{@linkplain} |
|{@docRoot} |
|{@value} |
+-------------+
An example of a field comment:
/**
* The X-coordinate of the component.
*
* @see #getLocation()
*/
int x = 1263732;
Constructor and Method Documentation Tags
The following are the tags that can appear in the documentation comment for a constructor or method,
except for {@inheritDoc}, which cannot appear in a constructor.
+------------------------+
|Method/Constructor Tags |
+------------------------+
|@see |
|@since |
|@deprecated |
|@param |
|@return |
|@throws and @exception |
|@serialData |
|{@link} |
|{@linkplain} |
|{@inheritDoc} |
|{@docRoot} |
+------------------------+
An example of a method doc comment:
/**
* Returns the character at the specified index. An index
* ranges from <code>0</code> to <code>length() - 1</code>.
*
* @param index the index of the desired character.
* @return the desired character.
* @exception StringIndexOutOfRangeException
* if the index is not in the range <code>0</code>
* to <code>length()-1</code>.
* @see java.lang.Character#charValue()
*/
public char charAt(int index) {
}
OPTIONS
The Javadoc tool uses doclets to determine its output. The Javadoc tool uses the default standard
doclet unless a custom doclet is specified with the -doclet option. The Javadoc tool provides a set
of command-line options that can be used with any doclet. These options are described below under
the sub-heading Javadoc Options. The standard doclet provides an additional set of command-line
options that are described below, under the sub-heading Options Provided by the Standard Doclet. All
option names are case-insensitive, though their arguments can be case-sensitive.
The options are:
-1.1 -help -package
-author -helpfile -private
-bootclasspath -J -protected
-bottom -keywords -public
-charset -link -quiet
-classpath -linkoffline -serialwarn
-d -linksource -source
-docencoding -locale -sourcepath
-doclet -nodeprecated -splitindex
-docletpath -nodeprecatedlist -stylesheetfile
-doctitle -nohelp -subpackages
-encoding -noindex -tag
-exclude -nonavbar -taglet
-excludedocfilessubdir -noqualifier -tagletpath
-extdirs -nosince -title
-footer -notimestamp -use
-group -notree -verbose
-header -overview windowtitle
-version
Javadoc Options
-overview path/filename
Specifies that javadoc should retrieve the text for the overview documentation from the
"source" file specified by path/filename and place it on the Overview page (overview-sum-mary.html). (overview-summary.html).
mary.html). The path/filename is relative to the -sourcepath.
While you can use any name you want for filename and place it anywhere you want for path, a
typical thing to do is to name it overview.html and place it in the source tree at the direc-tory directory
tory that contains the topmost package directories. In this location, no path is needed when
documenting packages, since -sourcepath will point to this file. For example, if the source
tree for the java.lang package is /src/classes/java/lang/, then you could place the overview
file at /src/classes/overview.html. See Real World Example.
For information about the file specified by path/filename, see overview comment file.
Notice that the overview page is created only if you pass into javadoc two or more package
names. For further explanation, see HTML Frames.
The title on the overview page is set by -doctitle .
-public
Shows only public classes and members.
-protected
Shows only protected and public classes and members. This is the default.
-package
Shows only package, protected, and public classes and members.
-private
Shows all classes and members.
-help Displays the online help, which lists these javadoc and doclet command line options.
-doclet class
Specifies the class file that starts the doclet used in generating the documentation. Use the
fully-qualified name. This doclet defines the content and formats the output. If the -doclet
option is not used, javadoc uses the standard doclet for generating the default HTML format.
This class must contain the start(Root) method. The path to this starting class is defined by
the -docletpath option.
For example, to call the MIF doclet, use:
-doclet com.sun.tools.doclets.mif.MIFDoclet
-docletpath classpathlist
Specifies the path to the doclet class file (specified with the -doclet option) and any jar
files it depends on. If the starting class file is in a jar file, then this specifies the
path to that jar file, as shown in the example below. You can specify an absolute path or a
path relative to the current directory. If classpath contains multiple paths or jar files,
they should be separated with a colon (:) on Windows. This option is not necessary if the
doclet is already in the search path.
Example of path to jar file that contains the startig doclet class file. Notice the jar file-name filename
name is included.
-docletpath /home/user/mifdoclet/lib/mifdoclet.jar
Example of path to starting doclet class file. Notice the class filename is omitted.
-docletpath /home/user/mifdoclet/classes/com/sun/tools/doclets/mif/
-1.1 This feature has been removed from Javadoc 1.4. There is no replacement for it. This option
created documentation with the appearance and functionality of documentation generated by
Javadoc 1.1 (including never supporting nested classes). If you need this option, use Javadoc
1.2 or 1.3 instead.
-sourcepath sourcepathlist
Specifies the search paths for finding source files (.java) when passing package names or
-subpackages into the javadoc command. The sourcepathlist can contain multiple paths by sepa-rating separating
rating them with a colon (:). The Javadoc tool will search in all subdirectories of the speci-fied specified
fied paths. Note that this option is not only used to located the source files being docu-mented, documented,
mented, but also to find source files that are not being documented but whose comments are
inherited by the source files being documented.
Note that you can use the -sourcepath option only when passing package names into the javadoc
command - it will not locate .java files passed into the javadoc command. (To locate .java
files, cd to that directory or include the path ahead of each file, as shown at Documenting
One or More Classes.) If -sourcepath is omitted, javadoc uses the class path to find the
source files (see -classpath). Therefore, the default -sourcepath is the value of class path.
If -classpath is omitted and you are passing package names into javadoc, it looks in the cur-rent current
rent directory (and subdirectories) for the source files.
Set sourcepathlist to the root directory of the source tree for the package you are document-ing. documenting.
ing. For example, suppose you want to document a package called com.mypackage whose source
files are located at:
/home/user/src/com/mypackage/*.java
In this case, you would specify the source path to /home/user/src, the directory that contains
com/mypackage, and then supply the package name com.mypackage:
example% javadoc -sourcepath /home/user/src/ com.mypackage
This is easy to remember by noticing that if you concatenate the value of the source path and
the package name together and change the dot to a slash "/", you end up with the full path to
the package:
/home/user/src/com/mypackage
To point to two source paths:
example% javadoc -sourcepath /home/user/src/:/home/user2/src com.mypackage
-classpath classpathlist
Specifies the paths where javadoc looks for referenced classes (.class files) - these are the
documented classes plus any classes referenced by those classes. The classpathlist can con-tain contain
tain multiple paths by separating them with a colon (:). The Javadoc tool will search in all
subdirectories of the specified paths. Follow the instructions in class path documentation
for specifying classpathlist.
If -sourcepath is omitted, the Javadoc tool uses -classpath to find the source files as well
as class files (for backward compatibility). Therefore, if you want to search for source and
class files in separate paths, use both -sourcepath and -classpath.
For example, if you want to document com.mypackage, whose source files reside in the directory
/home/user/src/com/mypackage, and if this package relies on a library in /home/user/lib, you
would specify:
example% javadoc -classpath /home/user/lib -sourcepath \
/home/user/src com.mypackage
As with other tools, if you do not specify -classpath, the Javadoc tool uses the CLASSPATH
environment variable, if it is set. If both are not set, the Javadoc tool searches for
classes from the current directory.
For an in-depth description of how the Javadoc tool uses -classpath to find user classes as it
relates to extension classes and bootstrap classes, see How Classes Are Found.
-bootclasspath classpathlist
Specifies the paths where the boot classes reside. These are nominally the Java platform
classes. The bootclasspath is part of the search path the Javadoc tool will use to look up
source and class files. See How Classes Are Found for more details. Separate directories in
classpathlist with colons (:).
-extdirs dirlist
Specifies the directories where extension classes reside. These are any classes that use the
Java Extension mechanism. The extdirs is part of the search path the Javadoc tool will use to
look up source and class files. See -classpath (above) for more details. Separate directo-ries directories
ries in dirlist with colons (:).
-verbose
Provides more detailed messages while javadoc is running. Without the verbose option, mes-sages messages
sages appear for loading the source files, generating the documentation (one message per
source file), and sorting. The verbose option causes the printing of additional messages
specifying the number of milliseconds to parse each java source file.
-quiet Shuts off non-error and non-warning messages, leaving only the warnings and errors appear,
making them easier to view. Also suppresses the version string.
-locale language_country_variant
Important: The -locale option must be placed ahead (to the left) of any options provided by
the standard doclet or any other doclet. Otherwise, the navigation bars will appear in
English. This is the only command-line option that is order-dependent.
Specifies the locale that javadoc uses when generating documentation. The argument is the
name of the locale, as described in java.util.Locale documentation, such as en_US (English,
United States) or en_US_WIN (Windows variant).
Specifying a locale causes javadoc to choose the resource files of that locale for messages
(strings in the navigation bar, headings for lists and tables, help file contents, comments in
stylesheet.css, and so forth). It also specifies the sorting order for lists sorted alphabet-ically, alphabetically,
ically, and the sentence separator to determine the end of the first sentence. It does not
determine the locale of the doc comment text specified in the source files of the documented
classes.
-encoding name
Specifies the source file encoding name, such as EUCJIS/SJIS. If this option is not speci-fied, specified,
fied, the platform default converter is used.
-Jflag Passes flag directly to the runtime system java that runs javadoc. Notice there must be no
space between the J and the flag. For example, if you need to ensure that the system sets
aside 32 megabytes of memory in which to process the generated documentation, then you would
call the -Xmx option of java as follows:
example% javadoc -J-Xmx32m -J-Xms32m com.mypackage
To tell what version of javadoc you are using, call the -version option of java:
example% javadoc -J-version
java version "1.2"
Classic VM (build JDK-1.2-V, green threads, sunwjit)
(The version number of the standard doclet appears in its output stream.)
Options Provided by the Standard Doclet
-d directory
Specifies the destination directory where javadoc saves the generated HTML files. (The "d"
means "destination.") Omitting this option causes the files to be saved to the current direc-tory. directory.
tory. The value directory can be absolute or relative to the current working directory. As
of 1.4, the destination directory is automatically created when javadoc is run.
For example, the following generates the documentation for the com.mypackage package and saves
the results in the /home/user/doc/ directory:
example% javadoc -d /home/user/doc com.mypackage
-use Includes one "Use" page for each documented class and package. The page describes what pack-ages, packages,
ages, classes, methods, constructors, and fields use any API of the given class or package.
Given class C, things that use class C would include subclasses of C, fields declared as C,
methods that return C, and methods and constructors with parameters of type C.
For example, look at what might appear on the "Use" page for String. The getName() method in
the java.awt.Font class returns type String. Therefore, getName() uses String, and you will
find that method on the "Use" page for String.
Note that this documents only uses of the API, not the implementation. If a method uses
String in its implementation but does not take a string as an argument or return a string,
that is not considered a "use" of String.
You can access the generated "Use" page by first going to the class or package, then clicking
on the "Use" link in the navigation bar.
-version
Includes the @version text in the generated docs. This text is omitted by default. To tell
what version of the Javadoc tool you are using, use the -J-version option.
-author
Includes the @author text in the generated docs.
-splitindex
Splits the index file into multiple files, alphabetically, one file per letter, plus a file
for any index entries that start with non-alphabetical characters.
-windowtitle title
Specifies the title to be placed in the HTML <title> tag. This appears in the window title
and in any browser bookmarks (favorite places) that someone creates for this page. This title
should not contain any HTML tags, as the browser cannot properly interpret them. Any internal
quotation marks within title might have to be escaped. If -windowtitle is omitted, the
Javadoc tool uses the value of -doctitle for this option.
example% javadoc -windowtitle "Java 2 Platform" com.mypackage
-doctitle title
Specifies the title to be placed near the top of the overview summary file. The title is
placed as a centered, level-one heading directly beneath the upper navigation bar. The title
may contain HTML tags and white space, though if it does, it must be enclosed in quotes. Any
internal quotation marks within title may have to be escaped.
example% javadoc -doctitle "Java<sup><font size=
TM</font></sup>" com.mypackage
-title title
This option no longer exists. It existed only in Beta versions of Javadoc 1.2. It has been
renamed to -doctitle. This option was renamed to make it clear that it defines the document
title rather than the window title.
-header header
Specifies the header text to be placed at the top of each output file. The header is placed
to the right of the upper navigation bar. header may contain HTML tags and white space,
though if it does, it must be enclosed in quotes. Any internal quotation marks within header
may have to be escaped.
-footer footer
Specifies the footer text to be placed at the bottom of each output file. The footer is
placed to the right of the lower navigation bar. footer may contain HTML tags and white
space, though if it does, it must be enclosed in quotes. Any internal quotation marks within
footer may have to be escaped.
-bottom text
Specifies the text to be placed at the bottom of each output file. The text is placed at the
bottom of the page, below the lower navigation bar. text may contain HTML tags and white
space, though if it does, it must be enclosed in quotes. Any internal quotation marks within
text may have to be escaped.
-link extdocURL
Creates links to existing javadoc-generated documentation of external referenced classes. It
takes one argument.
extdocURL is the absolute or relative URL of the directory containing the external javadoc-generated javadocgenerated
generated documentation you want to link to. Examples are shown below. The package-list file
must be found in this directory (otherwise, use -linkoffline). The Javadoc tool reads the
package names from the package-list file and then links to those packages at that URL. When
the Javadoc tool is run, the extdocURL value is copied literally into the <A HREF> links that
are created. Therefore, extdocURL must be the URL to the directory, not to a file.
You can use an absolute link for extdocURL to enable your docs to link to a document on any
website, or can use a relative link to link only to a relative location. If relative, the
value you pass in should be the relative path from the destination directory (specified with
-d ) to the directory containing the packages being linked to.
When specifying an absolute link you normally use an http: link. However, if you want to link
to a file system that has no web server, you can use a file: link - however, do this only if
everyone wanting to access the generated documentation shares the same file system.
You can specify multiple -link options in a given javadoc run to link to multiple documents.
Choosing between -linkoffline and -link - One or the other option is appropriate when linking
to an API document that is external to the current javadoc run.
Use -link: when using a relative path to the external API document, or when using an absolute
URL to the external API document, if you shell does not allow a program to open a connection
to that URL for reading.
Use -linkoffline : when using an absolute URL to the external API document, if your shell does
not allow a program to open a connection to that URL for reading. This can occur if you are
behind a firewall and the document you want to link to is on the other side.
Example using absolute links to the external docs - Let's say you want to link to the
java.lang, java.io and other Java 2 Platform packages at
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/api. The following command generates documentation for the
package com.mypackage with links to the Java 2 Platform packages. The generated documentation
will contain links to the Object class, for example in the class trees. (Other options, such
as -sourcepath and -d , are not shown.)
% javadoc -link http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/api com.mypackage
Example using relative links to the external docs - Let's say you have two packages whose docs
are generated in different runs of the Javadoc tool, and those docs are separated by a rela-tive relative
tive path. In this example, the packages are com.apipackage, and API, and com.spipackage, an
SPI (Service Provide Interface). YOu want the documentation to reside in docs/api/com/api-package docs/api/com/apipackage
package and docs/spi/com/spipackage. Assuming the API package documentation is already gener-ated, generated,
ated, and that docs is the current directory, you would document the SPI package with links to
the API documentation by running:
% javadoc -d ./spi -link ../api com.spipackage
Notice the -link argument is relative to the destination directory (docs/spi).
Details - The -link option enables you to link to classes referenced to by your code but not
documented in the current javadoc run. For these links to go to valid pages, you must know
where those HTML pages are located, and specify that location with extdocURL . This allows,
for instance, third party documentation to link to java.* documentation on
http://java.sun.com.
Omit the -link option for javadoc to create links only to API within the documentation it is
generating in the current run. (Without the -link option, the Javadoc tool does not create
links to documentation for external references, because it does not know if or where that doc-umentation documentation
umentation exists.
This option can create links in several places in the generated documentation.
Another use is for cross-links between sets of packages: Execute javadoc on one set of pack-ages, packages,
ages, then run javadoc again on another set of packages, creating links both ways between both
sets. A third use is as a "hack" to update docs: Execute javadoc on a full set of packages,
then run javadoc again on only the smaller set of changed packages, so that the updated files
can be inserted back into the original set.
Bug Fix for Referenced Classes - In 1.4 the following bug has been fixed:
Link bug in 1.2 and 1.3 - When @see or {@link}
references an excluded class and -link is used,
an <A HREF> hyperlink is created only if the class is referenced
with in an import statement or in a declaration. References
in the body of methods, alone are inadequate. A workaround
was to include an explicit (not wildcard) import
statement for the referenced class.
An @see or {@link} reference with -link is now enough to load the referenced class and enable
a link to it. You can remove any import statements you had added as workarounds, which we had
suggested you comment as follows:
import java.lang.SecurityManager; // workaround to force @see/@link\
hyperlink
Package List - The -link option requires that a file named package-list, which is generated by
the Javadoc tool, exist at the URL you specify with -link. The package-list file is a simple
text file that lists the names of packages documented at that location. In an earlier exam-ple, example,
ple, the Javadoc tool looks for a file named package-list at the given URL, reads in the pack-age package
age names and then links to those packages at that URL.
For example, the package list for the Java Platform v1.4 API is located at
http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/docs/\
api/package-list
and starts out as follows:
java.applet
java.awt
java.awt.color
java.awt.datatransfer
java.awt.dnd
java.awt.event
java.awt.font
etc.
When javadoc is run without the -link option, when it encounters a name that belongs to an
external referenced class, it prints the name with no link. However, when the -link option is
used, the Javadoc tool searches the package-list file at the specified extdocURL location for
that package name. If it finds the package name, it prefixes the name with extdocURL .
In order for there to be no broken links, all of the documentation for the external references
must exist at the specified URLs. The Javadoc tool does not check that these pages exist, only
that the package-list exists.
Multiple Links: - You can supply multiple-link options to link to any number of external gen-erated generated
erated documents. Javadoc 1.2 has a known bug that prevents you from supplying more than one
-link command. This was fixed in 1.2.2.
Specify a different link option for each external document to link to:
example% javadoc -link extdocURL1 -link extdocURL2 ... \
-link extdocURLn com.mypackage
where extdocURL1, extdocURL2, ... extdocURLn point respectively to the roots of external
documents, each of which contains a file named package-list.
Cross-links - Note that "bootstrapping" may be required when cross-linking two or more docu-ments documents
ments that have not been previously generated. In other words, if package-list does not exist
for either document, when you run the Javadoc tool on the first document, the package-list
does not yet exist for the second document. Therefore, to create the external links, you must
rree-generate the first document after generating the second document.
In this case, the purpose of first generating a document is to create its package-list (or you
can create it by hand if you are certain of the package names). Then generate the second doc-ument document
ument with its external links. The Javadoc tool prints a warning if a needed external package-list packagelist
list file does not exist.
-linkoffline extdocURL packagelistLoc
This option is a varition of -link; they both create links to javadoc-generated documentation
for external referenced classes. Use the -linkoffline option when linking to a document on
the web when the Javadoc tool itself is "offline" - that is, it cannot access the document
through a web connection.
More specifically, use -linkoffline is the external document's package-list file is not acces-sible accessible
sible or does not exist at the extdocURL location but does exist at a different location,
which can be specified by packageListLoc (typically local). Thus, is extdocURL is accessible
only on the World Wide Web, -linkoffline removes the constraint that the Javadoc tool have a
web connection when generating the documentation. Examples are given below.
The -linkoffline option takes two arguments - the first for the string to be embedded in the
<a href> links, the second telling it where to find package-list:
• extdocURL is the absolute or relative URL of the directory containing the external
javadoc-generated documentation you want to link to. If relative, the value should
be the relative path from the destination directory (specified with -d ) to the root
of the packages being linked to. For more details see extdocURL in the -link option.
• packagelistLoc is the path or URL to the directory containing the package-list file
for the external documentation. This can be a URL (http: or file:) or file path, and
can be absolute or relative. If relative, make it relative to the current directory
from where javadoc was run. Do not include the package-list filename.
You can specify multiple -linkoffline options in a given javadoc run. (Prior to 1.2.2, it
could be specified only once.)
Example using absolute links to the external docs - Let's say you want to link to the
java.lang, java.io and other Java 2 Platform packages at
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/api, but your shell does not have web access. You could open
the package-list file in a browser at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/api/package-list, save
it to a local directory, and point to this local copy with the second argument, packagelistLoc
. In this example, the package list file has been saved to the current directory "." . The
following command generates documentation for the package com.mypackage with links to the Java
2 Platform packages. The generated documentation will contain links to the Object class, for
example, in the class trees. (Other necessary options, such as -sourcepath, are not shown.)
% javadoc -linkoffline http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/api . com.mypackage
Example using relative links to the external docs - It's not very common to use -linkoffline
with relative paths, for the simple reason that -link usually suffices. When using -linkof-fline, -linkoffline,
fline, the package-list file is generally local, and when using relative links, the file you
are linking to is also generally local. So it is usually unnecessary to give a different path
for the two arguments to -linkoffline . When the two arguments are identical, you can use
-link . See the -link relative example.
Manually Creating A package-list File - If a package-list file does not yet exist, but you
know what package names your document will link to, you can create your own copy of this file
by hand and specify its path with packagelistLoc . An example would be the previous case
where the package list for com.spipackage did not exist when com.apipackage was first gener-ated. generated.
ated. This technique is useful when you need to generate documentation that links to new
external documentation whose package names you know, but which is not yet published. This is
also a way of creating package-list files for packages generated with Javadoc 1.0 or 1.1,
where package-list files were not generated. Likewise, two companies can share their unpub-lished unpublished
lished package-list files, enabling them to release their cross-linked documentation simulta-neously. simultaneously.
neously.
Linking to Multiple Documents - You can include -linkoffline once for each generated document
you want to refer to (each option is shown on a separate line for clarity):
example% javadoc -linkoffline docURL1 packagelistURL1 \
-linkoffline docURL2 packagelistURL2 \
...
Updating Docs - Another use for the -linkoffline option is useful if your project has dozens
or hundreds of packages; if you have already run javadoc on the entire tree; and now, in a
separate run, you want to quickly make some small changes and re-run javadoc on just a small
portion of the source tree. This is somewhat of a hack in that it works properly only if your
changes are only to doc comments and not to signatures. If you were to add, remove, or change
any signatures from the source code, then broken links could show up in the index, package
tree, inherited member lists, use page, or other places.
First, you create a new destination directory (call it update) for this new small run. Set the
first argument of -linkoffline to the current directory "." and set the second argument to the
relative path to the original docs (call it html), where it can find package-list:
example% javadoc -d update -linkoffline . html com.mypackage
When javadoc is done, copy these generated files (not the overview or index) in update over
the original files in
-linksource
Creates an HTML version of each source file (with line numbers) and adds links to them from
the standard HTML documentation. This option exposes all private implementation details in the
included source files, including private classes, private fields, and the bodies of private
methods, regardless of the -public, -package, -protected and -private options. Unless you also
use the -private option, not all private classes or interfaces will necessarily be accessible
via links.
-group groupheading packagepattern:packagepattern:...
Separates packages on the overview page into whatever groups you specify, one group per table.
You specify each group with a different -group option. The groups appear on the page in the
order specified on the command line; packages are alphabetized within a group. For a given
-group option, the packages matching the list of packagepattern expressions appear in a table
with the heading groupheading.
• groupheading can be any text, and can include white space. This text is placed in the table
heading for the group.
• packagepattern can be any package name, or can be the start of any package name followed by
an asterisk (*). The asterisk is a wildcard meaning "match any characters". This is the
only wildcard allowed. Multiple patterns can be included in a group by separating them with
colons (:).
NOTE: If using an asterisk in a pattern or pattern list, the pattern list must be inside
quotes, such as "java.lang*:java.util".
If you do not supply any -group option, all packages are placed in one group with the heading
"Packages". If the all groups do not include all documented packages, any leftover packages
appear in a separate group with the heading "Other Packages".
For example, the following option separates the four documented packages into core, extension,
and other packages. Notice the trailing "dot" does not appear in "java.lang*"; including the
dot, such as "java.lang.*", would omit the java.lang package:
example% javadoc -group "Core Packages" "java.lang*:java.util" \
-group "Extension Packages" "javax.*" \
java.lang java.lang.reflect java.util javax.servlet java.new
This results in the groupings:
Core Packages
java.lang
java.lang.reflect
java.util
Extension Packages
javax.servlet
Other Packages
java.new
-nodeprecated
Prevents the generation of any deprecated API at all in the documentation. This does what
-nodeprecatedlist does, plus it does not generate any deprecated API throughout the rest of
the documentation. This is useful when writing code and you don't want to be distracted by
the deprecated code.
-nodeprecatedlist
Prevents the generation of the file containing the list of deprecated APIs (deprecated-list.html) (deprecatedlist.html)
list.html) and the link in the navigation bar to that page. (However, javadoc continues to
generate the deprecated API throughout the rest of the document.) This is useful if your
source code contains no deprecated API, and you want to make the navigation bar cleaner.
-nosince
Omits from the generated docs the "Since" sections associated with the @since tags.
-notree
Omits the class/interface hierarchy from the generated docs. The hierarchy is produced by
default.
-noindex
Omits the index from the generated docs. The index is produced by default.
-nohelp
Omits the HELP link in the navigation bars at the top and bottom of each page of output.
-nonavbar
Prevents the generation of the navigation bar, header and footer, otherwise found at the top
and bottom of the generated pages. Has no effect on the "bottom" option. The -nonavbar
option is useful when you are interested only in the content and have no need for navigation,
such as converting the files to PostScript or PDF for print only.
-helpfile path/filename
Specifies the path of an alternate help file path/filename that the HELP link in the top and
bottom navigation bars link to. Without this option, the Javadoc tool automatically creates a
help file help-doc.html that is hard-coded in the Javadoc tool. This option enables you to
override this default. The filename can be any name and is not restricted to help-doc.html;
the Javadoc tool will adjust the links in the navigation bar accordingly. For example:
example% javadoc -helpfile /home/doc/myhelp.html java.awt
-stylesheetfile path/filename
Specifies the path of an alternate HTML stylesheet file. Without this option, the Javadoc
tool automatically creates a stylesheet file, stylesheet.css, that is hard-coded in the
Javadoc tool. This option enables you to override this default. The filename can be any name
and is not restricted to stylesheet.css. For example:
example% javadoc -stylesheetfile \
/home/user/mystylesheet.css com.mypackage
-serialwarn
Generates compile-time warnings for missing @serial tags. By default, Javadoc 1.2.2 (and
later versions) generates no serial warnings. (This is a reversal from earlier versions.)
Use this option to display the serial warnings, which helps to properly document default seri-alizable serializable
alizable fields and writeExternal methods.
-charset name
Specifies the HTML character set for this document. For example:
% javadoc -charset "iso-8859-1" mypackage
would insert the following line in the head of every generated page:
<META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-885 9-1">
This META tag is described in the HTML standard (4197265 and 4137321).
-docencoding name
Specifies the encoding of the generated HTML files.
-keywords
Adds HTML meta keyword tags to the generated file for each class. These tags can help the page
be found by search engines that look for meta tags. (Most search engines that search the
entire Internet do not look at meta tags, because pages can misuse them; but search engines
offered by companies that confine their search to their own website can benefit by looking at
meta tags.)
The meta tags include the fully qualified name of the class and theunqualified names of the
fields and methods. Constructors arenot included because they are identical to the class
name. For example, the class String starts with these keywords:
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="java.lang.String class">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="CASE_INSENSITIVE_ORDER">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="length()">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="charAt()">
-tag tagname:Xaoptcmf:
Enables javadoc to interpret a simple, one-argument custom standalone tag @tagname in doc com-ments. comments.
ments. So the Javadoc tool can "spell-check" tag names, it is important to include a -tag
option for every custom tag that is present in the source code, disabling (with X) those that
are not being output in the current run.
The colon (:) is always the separator. To use a colon, see Use of Colon in Tag Name .
The -tag option outputs the tag's heading taghead in bold, followed on the next line by the
text from its single argument, as shown in the example below. Like any standalone tag, this
argument's text can contain inline tags, which are also interpreted. The output is similar to
standard one-argument tags, such as @return and @author.
Placement of tags - The Xaoptcmf part of the argument determines where in the source code the
tag is allowed to be placed, and whether the tag can be disabled (using X). You can supply
either a, to allow the tag in all places, or any combination of the other letters:
X (disable tag)
a (all)
o (overview)
p (packages)
t (types, that is classes and interfaces)
c (constructors)
m (methods)
f (fields)
Examples of single tags - An example of a tag option for a tag that can be used anywhere in
the source code is:
-tag todo:a:"To Do:"
If you wanted @todo to be used only with constructors, methods and fields, you would use:
-tag todo:cmf:"To Do:"
Notice the last colon (:) above is not a parameter separator, but is part of the heading text
(as shown below). You would use either tag option for source code that contains the tag @todo,
such as:
@todo The documentation for this method needs work.
This line would produce output something like:
To Do:
The documentation for this method needs work.
Use of Colon in Tag Name -A NameA
A colon can be used in a tag name if it
is escaped with a backslash. For this comment:
/**
* @ejb:bean
*/
use this tag option:
-tag ejb\:bean:a:"EJB"
Spell-checking tag names (Disabling tags) - Some developers put custom tags in the source code
that they don't always want to output. In these cases, it is important to list all tags that
are present in the source code, enabling the ones you want to output and disabling the ones
you don't want to output. The presence of X disables the tag, while its absence enables the
tag. This gives the Javadoc tool enough information to know if a tag it encounters is unknown,
probably the results of a typo or a misspelling. It prints a warning in these cases.
You can add X to the placement values already present, so that when you want to enable the
tag, you can simply delete the X. For example, if @todo is a tag that you want to suppress on
output, you would use:
-tag todo:Xcmf:"To Do:"
or, if you'd rather keep it simple:
-tag todo:X
The syntax -tag todo:X works even if @todo is defined by a taglet.
Order of tags - The order of the -tag (and -taglet ) options determine the order the tags are
output. You can mix the custom tags with the standard tags to intersperse them. The tag
options for standard tags are placeholders only for determining the order -- they take only
the standard tag's name. (Subheadings for standard tags cannot be altered.) This is illus-trated illustrated
trated in the following example.
If -tag is missing, then the position of -taglet determines its order. If they are both
present, then whichever appears last on the command line determines its order. (This happens
because the tags and taglets are processed in the order that they appear on the command line.
For example, if -taglet and -tag both have the name "todo", the one that appears last on the
command line will determine its order.
Example of a complete set of tags - This example inserts "To Do" after "Parameters" and before
"Throws" in the output. By using "X", it also specifies that @example is a tag that might be
encountered in the source code that should not be output during this run. Notice that if you
use @argfile, you can put the tags on separate lines in an argument file like this (no line
continuation characters needed):
-tag param
-tag return
-tag todo:a:"To Do:"
-tag throws
-tag see
-tag example:X
When javadoc parses the doc comments, any tag encountered that is neither a standard tag nor
passed in with -tag or -taglet is considered unknown, and a warning is thrown.
The standard tags are initially stored internally in a list in their default order. Whenever
-tag options are used, those tags get appended to this list -- standard tags are moved from
their default position. Therefore, if a -tag option is omitted for a standard tag, it remains
in its default position.
Avoiding Conflicts - If you want to slice out your own namespace, you can use a dot-separated
naming convention similar to that used for packages: com.mycompany.todo. Sun will continue to
create standard tags whose names do not contain dots. Any tag you create will override the
behavior of a tag by the same name defined by Sun. In other words, if you create a tag or
taglet @todo, it will always have the same behavior you define, even if Sun later creates a
standard tag of the same name.
You can also create more complex standalone tags, or custom inline tags with the -taglet
option.
-taglet class
Specifies the class file that starts the taglet used in generating the documentation for that
tag. Use the fully-qualified name for class. This taglet also defines the number of text
arguments that the custom tag has. The taglet accepts those arguments, processes them, and
generates the output. For extensive documentation with example taglets, see Taglet Overview.
Taglets are useful for standalone or inline tags. They can have any number of arguments and
implement custom behavior, such as making text bold, formatting bullets, writing out the text
to a file, or starting other processes.
Use the -tagletpath option to specify the path to the taglet. Here is an example that inserts
the "To Do" taglet after "Parameters" and ahead of "Throws" in the generated pages:
-taglet com.sun.tools.doclets.ToDoTaglet
-tagletpath /home/taglets
-tag return
-tag param
-tag todo
-tag throws
-tag see
Alternatively, you can use the -taglet option in place of its -tag option, but that may be
harder to read.
-tagletpath tagletpathlist
Specifies the search paths for finding taglet class files (.class). The tagletpathlist can
contain multiple paths by separating them with a colon (:). The Javadoc tool will search in
all subdirectories of the specified paths.
-subpackages package1:package2:...
Generates documentation from source files in the specified packages and recursively in their
subpackages. This option is useful when adding new subpackages to the source code, as they are
automatically included. Each package is any top-level package (java) or fully qualified sub-package subpackage
package javax.swing), and does not need to contain source files. Wildcards are not needed or
allowed. Use -sourcepath to specify where to find the packages. For example:
% javadoc -d docs -sourcepath /home/user/src \
-subackages java:javax.swing
This command generates documentation for packages name "java" and "javax.swing" and all their
subpackages.
There is also an option to exclude subpackages as it traverses the subpackages.
-exclude packagename1:packagename2:...
Unconditionally excludes the specified packages and their subpackages from the list formed by
-subpackages if they would otherwise be included by some previous or later -subpackages
option. For example:
% javadoc -sourcepath /home/user/src -sourcepath java\
-exclude java.net:java.lang
would include java.io, java.util, and java.math (among others), but would exclude packages
rooted at java.net and java.lang. Notice this excludes java.lang.ref, a subpackage of
java.lang).
-breakiterator
Uses the internationalized sentence boundary of java.text.BreakIterator to determine the end
of the first sentence for English (all other locales already use BreakIterator ), rather than
an English language, locale-specific algorithm. By first sentence, we mean the first sentence
in the main desription of a package, class or member. This sentence is copied to the package,
class or member summary, and to the alphabetic index.
From JDK 1.2 forward, the BreakIterator class is already used to determine the end of sentence
for all languages but English. Therefore, the -breakiterator option has no effect except for
English from 1.2 forward. English had its own default algorithm:
• English default sentence break algorithm - Stops at a period followed by a space or a
HTML block tag, such as <P>.
• Breakiterator sentence break algorithm - Stops at a period, question mark or exclama-tion exclamation
tion mark followed by a space if the next word starts with a capital letter. This is
meant to handle most abbreviations (such as "The serial no. is valid", but won't handle
"Mr. Smith"). Won't stop at HTML tags or sentences that begin with numbers or symbols.
Stops at the last period in "../filename", even if embedded in an HTML tag.
NOTE: We have removed from 1.5.0 the breakiterator warning messages that were in 1.4.x and
have left the default sentence-break algorithm unchanged. That is, the -breakiterator option
is not the default in 1.5.0, nor do we expect it to become the default. This is a reversal
from our former intention that the default would change in the "next major release" (1.5.0).
This means if you have not modified your source code to eliminate the breakiterator warnings
in 1.4.x, then you don't have to do anything, and the warnings go away starting with 1.5.0.
The reason for this reversal is because any benefit to having breakiterator become the default
would be outweighed by the incompatible source change it would require. We regret any extra
work and confusion this has caused.
-docfilessubdirs
Enables deep copying of "doc-files" directories. In other words, subdirectories and all con-tents contents
tents are recursively copied to the destination. For example, the directory doc-files/exam-ple/images doc-files/example/images
ple/images and all its contents would now be copied. There is also an option to exclude sub-directories. subdirectories.
directories.
-excludedocfilessubdirs name1:name2:...
Excludes any "doc-files" subdirectories with the given names. This prevents the copying of
SCCS and other source-code-control subdirectories.
-noqualifier all | packagename1:packagename2:...
Omits qualifying package name from ahead of class names in output. The argument to -noquali-fier -noqualifier
fier is either "all" (all package qualifiers are omitted) or a colon-separate list of pack-ages, packages,
ages, with wildcards, to be removed as qualifiers. The package name is removed from places
where class or interface names appear.
The following example omits all package qualifiers:
-noqualifier all
The following example omits "java.lang" and "java.io" package qualifiers:
-noqualifier java.lang:java.io
The following example omits package qualifiers starting with "java", and "com.sun" subpackages
(but not "javax"):
-noqualifier java.*:com.sun.*
Where a package qualifier would appear due to the above behavior, the following behavior
(present in 1.3) also takes effect to further omit qualifiers: On the page for class p.C,
remove the package qualifier for classes belonging to package p. This rule is present whether
or not -noqualifier is used.
-notimestamp
Suppresses the timestamp, which is hidden in an HTML comment in the generated HTML near the
top of each page. Useful when you want to run javadoc on two source bases and diff them, as
it prevents timestamps from causing a diff (which would otherwise be a diff on every page).
The timestamp includes the javadoc version number,and currently looks like this:
<!-- Generated by javadoc (build 1.5.0-internal)
on Tue Jun 22 09:57:24 PDT 2004 -->
-nocomment
Suppress the entire comment body, including the description and all tags, generating only dec-larations. declarations.
larations. This option enables re-using source files originally intended for a different pur-pose, purpose,
pose, to produce a skeleton perhaps for a new project.
Command Line Argument Files
To shorten or simplify the javadoc command line, you can specify one or more files that themselves
contain arguments to the javadoc command (except -J options). This enables you to create javadoc
commands of any length on any operating system.
An argument file can include Javadoc options, source filenames and package names in any combination,
or just arguments to Javadoc options. The arguments within a file can be space-separated or newline-separated. newlineseparated.
separated. Filenames within an argument file are relative to the current directory, not the location
of the argument file. Wildcards (*) are not allowed in these lists (such as for specifying *.java).
Use of the '@' character to recursively interpret files is not supported. The -J options are not sup-ported supported
ported because they are passed to the launcher, which does not support argument files.
When executing javadoc, pass in the path and name of each argument file with the '@' leading charac-ter. character.
ter. When javadoc encounters an argument beginning with the character '@', it expands the contents of
that file in the argument list.
Example - Single Arg File
You could use a single argument file named "argfile" to hold all Javadoc arguments:
% javadoc @argfile
This argument file could contain the contents of both files shown in the next example.
Example - Two Arg Files
You can create two argument files - one for the Javadoc options and the other for the package names
or source filenames: (Notice the following lists have no line-continuation characters.)
Create a file named "options" containing:
-d docs-filelist
-use
-splitindex
-windowtitle 'Java 2 Platform v1.3 API Specification'
-doctitle 'Java<sup><font size="-2">TM</font></sup> 2\
Platform v1.4 API Specification'
-header '<b>Java 2 Platform </b><br><font size="-1">v1.4</font>'
-bottom 'Copyright 1993-2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.'
-group "Core Packages" "java.*"
-overview /java/pubs/ws/1.3/src/share/classes/overview-core.html
-sourcepath /java/pubs/ws/1.3/src/share/classes
Create a file named "packages" containing:
com.mypackage1
com.mypackage2
com.mypackage3
You would then run javadoc with:
% javadoc @options @packages
Example - Arg Files with Paths
The argument files can have paths, but any filenames inside the files are relative to the current
working directory (not path1 or path2):
% javadoc @path1/options @path2/packages
Examples - Option Arguments
Here's an example of saving just an argument to a javadoc option in an argument file. We'll use the
-bottom option, since it can have a lengthy argument. You could create a file named "bottom" contain-ing containing
ing its text argument:
Submit a bug or feature</a><br><br>Java is a trademark or registered trademark of Sun Microsystems,
Inc. in the US and other countries.<br>Copyright 1993-2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc. 901 San Antonio
Road,<br>Palo Alto, California, 94303, U.S.A. All Rights Reserved.</font>'
The run the Javadoc tool with:
% javadoc -bottom @bottom @packages
Or you could include the -bottom option at the start of the argument file, and then just run it as:
% javadoc @bottom @packages
RUNNING
Running Javadoc
Version Numbers -The NumbersThe
The version number of javadoc can be determined using javadoc-J-version. The version number of the
standard doclet appears in its output stream. It can be turned off with -quiet .
Public programmatic interface -To interfaceTo
To invoke the Javadoc tool from within programs written in the Java language. This interface is in
om.sun.tools.javadoc.Main (and javadoc is re-entrant). For
more details, see Standard Doclet.
SIMPLE EXAMPLES
You can run javadoc on entire packages or individual source files. Each package name has a corre-sponding corresponding
sponding directory name. In the following examples, the source files are located at
/home/src/java/awt/*java. The destination directory is /home/html.
Documenting One or More Packages
To document a package, the source files (*.java) for that package must be located in a directory hav-ing having
ing the same name as the package. If a package name is made up of several identifiers (separated by
dots, such as java.awt.color), each subsequent identifier must correspond to a deeper subdirectory
(such as java/awt/color). You may split the source files for a single package among two such direc-tory directory
tory trees located at different places, as long as -sourcepath points to them both - for example
src1/java/awt/color and src2/java/awt/color.
You can run javadoc either by changing directories (with cd) or by using -sourcepath option. The
examples below illustrate both alternatives.
• Case 1 - Run recursively starting from one or more packages - This example uses -sourcepath so
javadoc can be run from any directory. It traverses the subpackages of java excluding packages
rooted at java.net and java.lang. Notice this excludes java.lang.ref, a subpackage of java.lang).
% javadoc -d /home/html -sourcepath /home/src\
-subpackages java -exclude java.net:java.lang
To also traverse down other package trees, append their names to the -subpackages argument, such as
java:javax:org.xml.sax.
• Case 2 - Run on explicit packages after changing to the 'root' source directory - Change to the
parent directory of the fully qualified package. Then run javadoc, supplying names of one or more
packages you want to document:
example% cd /home/src/
example% javadoc -d /home/html java.awt java.awt.event
• Case 3 - Run from any directory on explicit packages in a single directory tree - In this case, it
does not matter what the current directory is. Run javadoc supplying -sourcepath with the parent
directory of the top-level package, and supplying names of one or more packages you want to docu-ment: document:
ment:
example% javadoc -d /home/html -sourcepath /home/src \
java.awt java.awt.event
• Case 4 - Run from any directory on explicit packages in multiple directory trees - This is the same
as case 3, but for packages in separate directory trees. Run javadoc supplying -sourcepath with
the path to each tree's root (colon-separated) and supply names of one or more packages you want to
document. All source files for a given package do not need to be located under a single root direc-tory directory
tory - they just need to be found somewhere along the sourcepath.
% javadoc -d /home/html -sourcepath\
/home/src1:/home/src2 java.awt java.awt.event
Result: All cases generate HTML-formatted documentation for the public and protected classes and
interfaces in packages java.awt and java.awt.event and save the HTML files in the specified destina-tion destination
tion directory (/home/html). Because two or more packages are being generated, the document has
three frames: for the list of packages, the list of classes, and the main page.
Documenting One or More Classes
The second way to run the Javadoc tool is by passing in one or more source files (.java). You can
run javadoc either of the following two ways: by changing directories (with cd) or by fully specify-ing specifying
ing the path to the .java files. Relative paths are relative to the current directory. The -sour-cepath -sourcepath
cepath option is ignored when passing in source files. You can use command line wildcards, such as
asterisk (*), to specify groups of classes.
• Case 1 - Changing to the source directory - Change to the directory holding the .java files. Then
run javadoc, supplying names of one or more source files you want to document.
example% cd /home/src/java/awt
example% javadoc -d /home/html Button.java Canvas.java \
Graphics*.java
This example generates HTML-formatted documentation for the classes Button, Canvas, and classes
beginning with Graphics. Because source files rather than package names were passed in as argu-ments arguments
ments to javadoc, the document has two frames - for the list of classes and the main page.
• Case 2 - Changing to the package root directory - This is useful for documenting individual source
files from different subpackages off the same root. Change to the package root directory, and sup-ply supply
ply the source files with paths from the root.
example% cd /home/src/
example% javadoc -d /home/html java/awt/Button.java \
java/applet/Applet.java
This example generates HTML-formatted documentation for the classes Button and Applet.
• Case 3 - From any directory - In this case, it doesn't matter what the current directory is. Run
javadoc, supplying the absolute path (or path relative to the current directory) to the .java files
you want to document:
example% javadoc -d /home/html /home/src/java/awt/Button.java \
/home/src/java/awt/Graphics*.java
This example generates HTML-formatted documentation for the class Button and classes beginning with
Graphics.
Documenting Both Packages and Classes
You can document entire packages and individual classes at the same time. Here is an example that
mixes the two previous examples. You can use -sourcepath for the path to the packages but not for
the path to the individual classes:
example% javadoc -d /home/html -sourcepath /home/src java.awt \
/home/src/java/applet/Applet.java
This example generates HTML-formatted documentation for the package java.awt and class Applet. The
Javadoc tool determines the package name for Applet from the package declaration, if any, in the
Applet.java source file.)
Real World Example
The Javadoc tool has many useful options, some of which are more commonly used than others. Here is
effectively the command you need to run the Javadoc tool on the Java platform API. We use 180MB of
memory to generate the documentation for the 1500 (approx.) public and protected classes in the Java
2 Platform, Standard Edition, v1.2.
The same example is shown twice - first as executed on the command line, then as execued from a make-file. makefile.
file. It uses absolute paths in the option arguments, which enables the same javadoc command to be
run from any directory.
Command Line Example
This command line example is over 900 characters, which is too long from some shells, such as DOS.
You can use a command line argument file (or write a shell script) to workaround this limitation.
example% javadoc -sourcepath /jdk/src/share/classes \
-overview /java/jdk/src/share/classes/overview.html \
-d /jdk/build/api -use -splitIndex -windowtitle 'Java 2 Platform v1.2 API Specification' \
-doctitle 'Java<sup><font size="-2">TM</font></sup> 2 Platform v1.2 API Specification ' \
-header '<b>Java 2 Platform </b><br><font size="-1">v1.2</font>' \
-bottom '<font size="-1"><a href="http://java.sun.com/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi"> \
Submit a bug or feature</a><br><br>Java is a trademark or registered \
trademark of Sun Microsystems,Inc. in the US and other countries.<br> \
Copyright 1993-1999 Sun Microsystems, Inc. \
901 San Antonio Road,<br>Palo Alto, California, 94303, U.S.A. \
All Rights Reserved.</font>' \
-group "Core Packages" "java.*:com.sun.java.*:org.omg.*" -group "Extension Packages" "javax.*" \
-J-Xmx180m @packages
where packages is the name of a file containing the packages to process, such as java.applet,
java.lang. None of the options should contain any newline characters between the single quotes. (For
example, if you copy and paste this example, delete the newline characters from the -bottom option.)
See the other notes listed below.
Makefile Example
This is an example of a GNU makefile. For an example of a Windows makefile, see creating a makefile
for Windows.
example% javadoc -sourcepath /jdk/src/share/classes /* Sets path for
source files */
-overview $ (SRCDIR)/overview.html /* Sets path for overview text */
-d /jdk/build/api /* Sets destination directory */
-use /* Adds "Use" files */
-splitIndex /* Splits index A-Z */
-windowtitle $(WINDOWTITLE) /* Adds a window title */
-doctitle $(DOCTITLE) /* Adds a doc title */
-header $(HEADER) /* Adds running header text */
-bottom $(BOTTOM) /* Adds text at bottom */
-group $(GROUPCORE) /* 1st subhead on overview page */
-group $(GROUPEXT) /* 2nd subhead on overview page */
-J-Xmx180m /* Sets memory to 180MB */
java.lang java.lang.reflect /* Sets packages to document */
java.util java.io java.net java.applet
WINDOWTITLE = 'Java Platform 1.2 Final API Specification'
DOCTITLE = 'Java<sup><font size="-2">TM</font></sup> Platform 1.2 \
Final API Specification'
HEADER = '<b>Java Platform 1.2</b><br><font size="-1">Final</font>'
BOTTOM = '<font size="-1"><a href="http://java.sun.com/cgi-bin/\
bugreport.cgi">Submit a bug or feature</a><br><br>Java \
is a trademark or registered trademark of Sun \
Microsystems, Inc. in the US and other countries.<br>\
Copyright 1993-1998 Sun Microsystems, Inc. 901 San \
Antonio Road,<br>Palo Alto, California, 94303, U.S.A.\
</font>'
GROUPCORE = '"Core Packages" "java.*:com.sun.java.*:org.omg.*"
GROUPEXT = '"Extension Packages" "javax.*"'
SRCDIR = '/java/jdk/1.2/src/share/classes'
Single quotes are used to surround makefile arguments.
Notes
• If you omit the -windowtitle option, the Javadoc tool copies the doc title to the window title. The
-windowtitle text is basically the same as the -doctitle but without HTML tags, to prevent those
tags from appearing as raw text in the window title).
• If you omit the -footer option, as done here, the Javadoc tool copies the header text to the
footer.
Other important options you might wan to use but
not needed in this example are -classpath and -link.
TROUBLESHOOTING
General Troubleshooting
• Javadoc FAQ - Commonly-encountered bugs and troubleshooting tips can be found on the Javadoc FAQ
• Bugs and Limitations - You can also see some bugs listed at Important Bug Fixes and Changes.
• Version number - See version numbers.
• Documents only legal classes - When documenting a package, javadoc only reads files whose names are
composed of legal class names. You can prevent javadoc from parsing a file by including, for exam-ple, example,
ple, a hyphen "-" in its filename.
Errors and Warnings
Error and warning messages contain the filename and line number to the declaration line rather than
to the particular line in the doc comment:
• "error: cannot read: Class1.java" the Javadoc tool is trying to load the class Class1.java in the
current directory. The class name is shown with its path (absolute or relative), which in this case
is the same as ./Class1.java.
ENVIRONMENT
CLASSPATH Environment variable that provides the path which javadoc uses to find user class
files. This environment variable is overridden by the -classpath option. Sepa-rate Separate
rate your directories with a colon, for example:
.:/home/classes:/usr/local/java/classes
SEE ALSO
javac(1), java(1), jdb(1), javah(1), javap(1)
See (or search java.sun.com) for the following:
The Javadoc Home Page @
http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/javadoc/index.html
How to Write Doc Comments for Javadoc@
http://java.sun.com/j2se/javadoc/writingdoccomments/index.html
Setting the Class Path
How Javac and Javadoc Find Classes
10 March 2001 javadoc(1)
|
Сообщение о проблемах
Способ сообщить о проблеме с этой страницей руководства зависит от типа проблемы:
- Ошибки содержания
- Ошибки отчета в содержании этой документации со ссылками на отзыв ниже.
- Отчеты об ошибках
- Сообщите об ошибках в функциональности описанного инструмента или API через Генератор отчетов Ошибки.
- Форматирование проблем
- Отчет, форматирующий ошибки в интерактивной версии этих страниц со ссылками на отзыв ниже.