Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition

Name

javadoc — The Java Documentation Generator

Synopsis

javadoc [ options ] @list 
                  package... sourcefiles...

Description

javadoc generates API documentation for any number of packages and classes you specify. The javadoc command line can list any number of package names and any number of Java source files. For convenience, when working with a large number of command-line options, or a large number of package or class names, you can place them all in an auxiliary file and specify the name of that file on the command line, preceded by an @ character.

javadoc uses the javac compiler to process all the specified Java source files and all the Java source files in all the specified packages. It uses the information it gleans from this processing to generate detailed API documentation. Most importantly, the generated documentation includes the contents of all documentation comments included in the source files. See Chapter 7 for information about writing doc comments in your own Java code.

When you specify a Java source file for javadoc to process, you must specify the name of the file that contains the source, including a complete path to the file. It is more common, however, to use javadoc to create documentation for entire packages of classes. When you specify a package for javadoc to process, you specify the package name, not the directory that contains the source code for the package. In this case, you may need to specify the -sourcepath option so that javadoc can find your package ...