Visual Studio Hacks

Create XML Comments with VB.NET #70

Chapter 8, Comments and Documentation

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287

HACK

<member name="T:TestXMLLib.Class1">

<summary>

This class contains a number of functions that we can call.

</summary>

<remarks>

</remarks>

<history>

[James Avery] 10/8/2004 Created

</history></member>

<member name="M:TestXMLLib.Class1.DoSomething">

<summary>

This sub goes and does something important.

Throws CannotPerformException if an error is encountered.

</summary>

<remarks>

</remarks>

<history>

[James Avery] 10/8/2004 Created

</history></member>

</members>

</doc>

From here, you can use this XML file just as it was created from C#. You

can use NDoc

[Hack #71] to turn this XML into some form of documentation.

(You could, of course, use XSLT to transform this XML as well.)

Configuring VBCommenter

VBCommenter allows you to configure a number of settings pertaining to

how the power toy operates. These options can be set from the Tools

➝ VBCommenter Settings dialog, which is shown in Figure 8-3.

The “Create .xml files when projects are built” setting determines whether

the <YourProject>.xml file will be created when the project is built. It is a

good idea to uncheck this until you are actually ready to create your docu-

mentation. There is no need to create these files every time you build your

solution since it slows down the build process. The “Insert XML comments

in source” setting enables or disables whether