Is It Possible To Use JSDuck On Java Code?

[opticyclic]

Is it possible to use JSDuck on Java code (not javascript)?

I am looking at different documentation tools and would like to have the same format for the Java side as for the javascript side.

[arthurakay]

One of my colleagues has run JSDuck on Java, Ruby and other languages besides JavaScript. I'll see if I can get him to comment...

[suzuki1100nz]

Can I ask why?
Why would you want to use JSDuck to generate docs on Java code? JSDuck is based on Javadoc which was written specifically to generate docs from java code following sun standards.
It comes with eclipse.

[arthurakay]

You might want the output to look extra nice :-)

You might also want all of your application documentation in a centralized place... JavaScript (client), Java (server), and any other tier.

[jratcliff]

Is it possible to use JSDuck on Java code (not javascript)?

I am looking at different documentation tools and would like to have the same format for the Java side as for the javascript side.

Yes, I've used it to document Java, PHP, and Ruby. It's a little trickier with Ruby since you have to wrap your doc comments in =begin, =end ruby comment blocks. PHP also has issue with single line comments that start with '#'. But as for Java, it was the most straight forward.

So, the trick to get JSDuck to document your classes and methods is that you have to add the @class and @method tags in your doc comments. JSDuck is geared toward JavaScript and specifically code written using the ExtJS styles and therefore it will do a lot of the work for you in figuring out what the class and method names are. For non-JavaScript code, you just have to manually add your @tags (@class, @extend, @method, etc.).

[Gjslick]

Honestly, what a great idea. I love the output and application that jsduck creates next to the framed, difficult-to-navigate javadocs. If I want to keep a few classes open for reference in Java, I usually end up opening a browser tab for each one (then forgetting which one is which if I have too many and lose the window titles). Not to mention the search feature, ability to show/hide public/protected/private, show/hide inherited fields/methods, etc.

Might just want to add a custom @throws tag to fill in for that need

[opticyclic]

Thanks for the info.
Would you mind pasting a sample command of running it as I haven't used JSDuck before.

Is the only way to integrate it with ant ANT script to use the Exec task?

[jratcliff]

Here's an example shell script that I use:

jsduck \
  ./src/com/sencha/test/*.java \
  ./src/com/sencha/test/servlet/*.java \
  ./src/com/sencha/test/util/*.java \
  ./src/com/sencha/jetty/*.java \
  --output docs \
  --title="Test Title" \
  --warnings=-all \
  --welcome=./doc_src/welcome.html \

However, I seem to recall that on windows, this won't work as a bat file since the line continuation character is different.

So a more cross-platform way to do this would be to use a config file. Your command would then be:

jsduck --config yourconfigfile.config

And your config would be in json format and would look something like this:

{
  "--title" : "Test Title",
  "--warnings" : "-all",
  "--welcome" : "./doc_src/welcome.html",
  "--output" : "docs:,
  "--" : [
    "./src/com/sencha/test/*.java",
    "./src/com/sencha/test/servlet/*.java".
    "./src/com/sencha/test/util/*.java",
    "./src/com/sencha/jetty/*.java"
  ]
}

[javidmasti]

Has anyone tried it on windows. I get an error when i try to include javafiles for the documentation

c:\ jsduck {*.js,*.java} -o docs
Error: Error while parsing c:\test.java: Line 1: Unexpected reserved word

[jasmin007]

Every once in a while I get asked why doesn't JSDuck support a certain character in the names of various entities. The character is usually some punctuation like the dot (.) or dash (-). The names in question are the names of classes and class members (methods, properties, events, etc).

So why doesn't JSDuck allow you to document a class named My.Special-Class or method named my+method? Why doesn't the freaking tool just get out of the way and allow you to do what you want? Supporting just one more character can't be so hard - why not simply do it?

Three reasons:

It's not sensible
It's troublesome to implement
It's not just JSDuck