Javadoc/Javadoc2

Description

Generates code documentation using the javadoc tool.

The source directory will be recursively scanned for Java source files to process but only those matching the inclusion rules, and not matching the exclusions rules will be passed to the javadoc tool. This allows wildcards to be used to choose between package names, reducing verbosity and management costs over time. This task, however, has no notion of "changed" files, unlike the javac task. This means all packages will be processed each time this task is run. In general, however, this task is used much less frequently.

NOTE: since javadoc calls System.exit(), javadoc cannot be run inside the same VM as Apache Ant without breaking functionality. For this reason, this task always forks the VM. This overhead is not significant since javadoc is normally a heavy application and will be called infrequently.

NOTE: the packagelist attribute allows you to specify the list of packages to document outside of the Ant file. It's a much better practice to include everything inside the build.xml file. This option was added in order to make it easier to migrate from regular makefiles, where you would use this option of javadoc. The packages listed in packagelist are not checked, so the task performs even if some packages are missing or broken. Use this option if you wish to convert from an existing makefile. Once things are running you should then switch to the regular notation.

DEPRECATION: the javadoc2 task simply points to the javadoc task and it's there for back compatibility reasons. Since this task will be removed in future versions, you are strongly encouraged to use javadoc instead.

In the table below, 1.2 means available if your current Java VM is a 1.2 VM (but not 1.3 or later), 1.4+ for any VM of at least version 1.4, otherwise any VM of at least version 1.2 is acceptable. JDKs <1.4 are no longer supported. If you specify the executable attribute it is up to you to ensure that this command supports the attributes you wish to use.

Note:
When generating the JavaDocs for classes which contains annotations you maybe get a java.lang.ClassCastException: com.sun.tools.javadoc.ClassDocImpl. This is due bug-6442982. The cause is that JavaDoc cannot find the implementations of used annotations. The workaround is providing the jars with these implementations (like JAXBs @XmlType, ...) to <javadoc> using classpath, classpathref attributes or nested <classpath> element.

Note: many problems with running javadoc stem from command lines that have become too long - even though the error message doesn't give the slightest hint this may be the problem. If you encounter problems with the task, try to set the useexternalfile attribute to true first.

If you use multiple ways to specify where javadoc should be looking for sources your result will be the union of all specified documentations. If you, e.g., specify a sourcepath attribute and also a nested packageset both pointing at the same directory your excludepackagenames attribute won't have any effect unless it agrees with the exclude patterns of the packageset (and vice versa).

Parameters

Format of the group attribute

The arguments are comma-delimited. Each single argument is 2 space-delimited strings, where the first one is the group's title and the second one a colon delimited list of packages.

If you need to specify more than one group, or a group whose title contains a comma or a space character, using nested group elements is highly recommended.

E.g.:

    group="XSLT_Packages org.apache.xalan.xslt*,XPath_Packages org.apache.xalan.xpath*"

Parameters specified as nested elements

packageset

A DirSet. All matched directories that contain Java source files will be passed to javadoc as package names. Package names are created from the directory names by translating the directory separator into dots. Ant assumes the base directory of the packageset points to the root of a package hierarchy.

The packagenames, excludepackagenames and defaultexcludes attributes of the task have no effect on the nested <packageset> elements.

fileset

A FileSet. All matched files will be passed to javadoc as source files. Ant will automatically add the include pattern **/*.java (and **/package.html if includenosourcepackages is true) to these filesets.

Nested filesets can be used to document sources that are in the default package or if you want to exclude certain files from documentation. If you want to document all source files and don't use the default package, packagesets should be used instead as this increases javadocs performance.

The packagenames, excludepackagenames and defaultexcludes attributes of the task have no effect on the nested <fileset> elements.

sourcefiles

A container for arbitrary file system based resource collections. All files contained in any of the nested collections (this includes nested filesets, filelists or paths) will be passed to javadoc as source files.

package

Same as one entry in the list given by packagenames.

Parameters

excludepackage

Same as one entry in the list given by excludepackagenames.

Parameters

source

Same as one entry in the list given by sourcefiles.

Parameters

doctitle

Same as the doctitle attribute, but you can nest text inside the element this way.

If the nested text contains line breaks, you must use the useexternalfile attribute and set it to true.

header

Similar to <doctitle>.

footer

Similar to <doctitle>.

bottom

Similar to <doctitle>.

link

Create link to javadoc output at the given URL. This performs the same role as the link and linkoffline attributes. You can use either syntax (or both at once), but with the nested elements you can easily specify multiple occurrences of the arguments.

Parameters

group

Separates packages on the overview page into whatever groups you specify, one group per table. This performs the same role as the group attribute. You can use either syntax (or both at once), but with the nested elements you can easily specify multiple occurrences of the arguments.

Parameters

The title may be specified as a nested <title> element with text contents, and the packages may be listed with nested <package> elements as for the main task.

doclet

The doclet nested element is used to specify the doclet that javadoc will use to process the input source files. A number of the standard javadoc arguments are actually arguments of the standard doclet. If these are specified in the javadoc task's attributes, they will be passed to the doclet specified in the <doclet> nested element. Such attributes should only be specified, therefore, if they can be interpreted by the doclet in use.

If the doclet requires additional parameters, these can be specified with <param> elements within the <doclet> element. These parameters are restricted to simple strings. An example usage of the doclet element is shown below:

  <javadoc ... >
     <doclet name="theDoclet"
             path="path/to/theDoclet">
        <param name="-foo" value="foovalue"/>
        <param name="-bar" value="barvalue"/>
     </doclet>
  </javadoc>

tag

If you want to specify a standard tag using a nested tag element because you want to determine the order the tags are output, you must not set the description attribute for those tags.

Parameters

ejb.bean:t:XDoclet EJB Tag
todo:a:To Do

taglet

The taglet nested element is used to specify custom taglets beyond the default taglets.

Parameters

sourcepath, classpath and bootclasspath

Javadoc's sourcepath, classpath and bootclasspath attributes are PATH like structure and can also be set via nested sourcepath, classpath and bootclasspath elements respectively.

arg

Use nested <arg> to specify additional arguments. See Command line arguments. Since Ant 1.6

Example

  <javadoc packagenames="com.dummy.test.*"
           sourcepath="src"
           excludepackagenames="com.dummy.test.doc-files.*"
           defaultexcludes="yes"
           destdir="docs/api"
           author="true"
           version="true"
           use="true"
           windowtitle="Test API">
    <doctitle><![CDATA[<h1>Test</h1>]]></doctitle>
    <bottom><![CDATA[<i>Copyright &#169; 2000 Dummy Corp. All Rights Reserved.</i>]]></bottom>
    <tag name="todo" scope="all" description="To do:"/>
    <group title="Group 1 Packages" packages="com.dummy.test.a*"/>
    <group title="Group 2 Packages" packages="com.dummy.test.b*:com.dummy.test.c*"/>
    <link offline="true" href="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/" packagelistLoc="C:\tmp"/>
    <link href="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/"/>
  </javadoc>

is the same as

  <javadoc
           destdir="docs/api"
           author="true"
           version="true"
           use="true"
           windowtitle="Test API">

    <packageset dir="src" defaultexcludes="yes">
      <include name="com/dummy/test/**"/>
      <exclude name="com/dummy/test/doc-files/**"/>
    </packageset>

    <doctitle><![CDATA[<h1>Test</h1>]]></doctitle>
    <bottom><![CDATA[<i>Copyright &#169; 2000 Dummy Corp. All Rights Reserved.</i>]]></bottom>
    <tag name="todo" scope="all" description="To do:"/>
    <group title="Group 1 Packages" packages="com.dummy.test.a*"/>
    <group title="Group 2 Packages" packages="com.dummy.test.b*:com.dummy.test.c*"/>
    <link offline="true" href="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/" packagelistLoc="C:\tmp"/>
    <link href="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/"/>
  </javadoc>

or

  <javadoc
           destdir="docs/api"
           author="true"
           version="true"
           use="true"
           windowtitle="Test API">

    <fileset dir="src" defaultexcludes="yes">
      <include name="com/dummy/test/**"/>
      <exclude name="com/dummy/test/doc-files/**"/>
    </fileset>

    <doctitle><![CDATA[<h1>Test</h1>]]></doctitle>
    <bottom><![CDATA[<i>Copyright &#169; 2000 Dummy Corp. All Rights Reserved.</i>]]></bottom>
    <tag name="todo" scope="all" description="To do:"/>
    <group title="Group 1 Packages" packages="com.dummy.test.a*"/>
    <group title="Group 2 Packages" packages="com.dummy.test.b*:com.dummy.test.c*"/>
    <link offline="true" href="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/" packagelistLoc="C:\tmp"/>
    <link href="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/"/>
  </javadoc>