Selective javadoc

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Chris - 09 Mar 2008 21:14 GMT

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

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

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

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Lew - 09 Mar 2008 23:26 GMT

> We publish a library. Part of the API we'd like to document, and part of
> it needs to remain closed.
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> I can find nothing in the Javadoc docs that supports this. I'm wondering
> if there is a fancy doclet out there that would do it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Lew

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Selective javadoc

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