Java documentation comment(Javadoc)

Description

Javadoc Documentation comment is used to produce an HTML file that documents your program. In short we usually call Java documentation comment javadoc.

Syntax

A Javadoc comment occupies one or more lines of source code. The documentation comment begins with a /** and ends with a */. Everything from /** through */ is ignored by the compiler.

Example

The following example demonstrates a Javadoc comment:

/** /*  w  w  w. ja v  a  2  s.c  om*/
* Application entry point 
* 
* @param args array of command-line arguments passed to this method 
*/ 
public static void main(String[] args) 
{ 
// TODO code application logic here 
}

This example begins with a Javadoc comment that describes the main() method. /** and */ contains a description of the method, which could include HTML tags such as <p>, <code> and /</code>, and the @param Javadoc tag (an @-prefixed instruction).

Tag list

The following list identifies several commonly used tags:

• @author identifies the source code's author.
• @deprecated identifies a source code entity that should no longer be used.
• @param identifies one of a method's parameters.
• @see provides a see-also reference.
• @since identifies the software release where the entity first originated.
• @return identifies the kind of value that the method returns.

Example 2

The following code has more documentation comments

/**//from   ww w. j  a  va  2 s . c  om
 * A simple class for introducing a Java application.
 * 
 * @author yourName
 */
public class HelloWorld {
  /**
   * Application entry point
   * 
   * @param args
   *          array of command-line arguments passed to this method
   */
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    System.out.println("Hello, world!");
  }
}

We can extract these documentation comments into a set of HTML files by using the JDK's javadoc tool, as follows:

javadoc command defaults to generating HTML-based documentation for public classes and public/protected members of these classes.