API Design for C++, 2nd Edition

11: Documentation

Abstract

Well-written documentation is a critical element of any application programming interface (API). It describes what an API does and how it behaves, such as defining units for parameters, error conditions, or thrown exceptions. For behavior-only API changes, documentation is the only way to communicate a change to the API. This chapter provides a checklist for what you should document and details the various types of documentation you can produce, including automated API documentation, overview documentation, code samples, tutorials, release notes, and license information. A large part of this chapter is dedicated to the use of the Doxygen tool to create API documentation automatically, including sample templates ...