Categories: Ant

Java Documentation using Ant Build file

Ant makes it even easier by generating the documentation on demand by using javadoc task in ANT. Documentation is very useful for any project for maintenance purpose. And it useful in to understand the code and its functionality in any project.

Ant provide JAVADOC task for creating run time documentation for a project.

Attribute for JAVADOC task in ANT-

  • sourcepath-> is used to point to the folder of the source files (e.g. src folder).
  • sourcepathref-> is used to refer a path that is referenced by the path attribute (e.g, delegates.src.dir).
  • sourcefiles-> is used when you want to specify the individual files as a comma separated list.
  • packagenames-> specifying the package names to be included.
  • destdir-> Destination path is specified.

You could filter the javadoc process to show only the public, private, package, or protected classes and members. This is achieved by using the private, public, package and protected attributes.

Let us see Hello world application. Let us add a documentation target to our Hello World application project.

Given below is an example javadoc task used in our project. In this example, we have specified the javadoc to use the src.dir as the source directory, and doc as the target.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
   <project name="Hello World" default="info" basedir=".">
    <property file="build.properties"/>
   <target name="info">
      <echo>Hello World - Welcome to Apache Ant Tutorial by Tutor ${tutor}!!!</echo>
   </target>
    <target name ="makejar" description="Create a jar for the HelloWorld project">
     <mkdir dir="${build.dir}"/>
     <mkdir dir="${build.dir}/classes"/>
     <jar jarfile="${build.dir}/HelloWorld.jar" basedir="${build.dir}/classes">
      <manifest>
        <attribute name = "Main-Class" value = "com.dineshonjava.HelloWorld"/>
     </manifest>
     </jar>
   </target>
    
    <target name = "generate-javadoc">
      <mkdir dir="doc"/>
       <javadoc packagenames="com.dineshonjava.*" sourcepath="src" 
            destdir = "doc" version = "true" windowtitle = "Hello World Application">
         <doctitle><![CDATA[= Hello World Application =]]></doctitle>
             <bottom>
                <![CDATA[Copyright © 2016. All Rights Reserved.]]>
             </bottom>
             <group title = "hello packages" packages = "com.dineshonjava.*"/>
      </javadoc>
      <echo message = "java doc has been generated!" />
     </target>
</project>

We have also customized the window title, the header, and the footer information that appear on the java documentation pages.

Let us execute the javadoc Ant task. It generates and places the java documentation files in the doc folder.

When the javadoc target is executed, it produces the following outcome:

The java documentation files are now present in the doc folder.

Typically, the javadoc files are generated as a part of the release or package targets.

 

Previous
Next
Dinesh Rajput

Dinesh Rajput is the chief editor of a website Dineshonjava, a technical blog dedicated to the Spring and Java technologies. It has a series of articles related to Java technologies. Dinesh has been a Spring enthusiast since 2008 and is a Pivotal Certified Spring Professional, an author of a book Spring 5 Design Pattern, and a blogger. He has more than 10 years of experience with different aspects of Spring and Java design and development. His core expertise lies in the latest version of Spring Framework, Spring Boot, Spring Security, creating REST APIs, Microservice Architecture, Reactive Pattern, Spring AOP, Design Patterns, Struts, Hibernate, Web Services, Spring Batch, Cassandra, MongoDB, and Web Application Design and Architecture. He is currently working as a technology manager at a leading product and web development company. He worked as a developer and tech lead at the Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd and was the first developer in his previous company, Paytm. Dinesh is passionate about the latest Java technologies and loves to write technical blogs related to it. He is a very active member of the Java and Spring community on different forums. When it comes to the Spring Framework and Java, Dinesh tops the list!

Share
Published by
Dinesh Rajput

Recent Posts

Strategy Design Patterns using Lambda

Strategy Design Patterns We can easily create a strategy design pattern using lambda. To implement…

2 years ago

Decorator Pattern using Lambda

Decorator Pattern A decorator pattern allows a user to add new functionality to an existing…

2 years ago

Delegating pattern using lambda

Delegating pattern In software engineering, the delegation pattern is an object-oriented design pattern that allows…

2 years ago

Spring Vs Django- Know The Difference Between The Two

Technology has emerged a lot in the last decade, and now we have artificial intelligence;…

2 years ago

TOP 20 MongoDB INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 2022

Managing a database is becoming increasingly complex now due to the vast amount of data…

2 years ago

Scheduler @Scheduled Annotation Spring Boot

Overview In this article, we will explore Spring Scheduler how we could use it by…

3 years ago