Generates code documentation using the javadoc tool.
The source directory will be recursively scanned for Java source files to process but only those matching the inclusion rules, and not matching the exclusions rules will be passed to the javadoc tool. This allows wildcards to be used to choose between package names, reducing verbosity and management costs over time. This task, however, has no notion of "changed" files, unlike the javac task. This means all packages will be processed each time this task is run. In general, however, this task is used much less frequently.
This task works seamlessly between different javadoc versions (1.1 and 1.2), with the obvious restriction that the 1.2 attributes will be ignored if run in a 1.1 VM.
NOTE: since javadoc calls System.exit(), javadoc cannot be run inside the same VM as ant without breaking functionality. For this reason, this task always forks the VM. This overhead is not significant since javadoc is normally a heavy application and will be called infrequently.
NOTE: the packagelist attribute allows you to specify the list of packages to document outside of the Ant file. It's a much better practice to include everything inside the build.xml file. This option was added in order to make it easier to migrate from regular makefiles, where you would use this option of javadoc. The packages listed in packagelist are not checked, so the task performs even if some packages are missing or broken. Use this option if you wish to convert from an existing makefile. Once things are running you should then switch to the regular notation.
DEPRECATION: the javadoc2 task simply points to the javadoc task and it's there for back compatibility reasons. Since this task will be removed in future versions, you are strongly encouraged to use javadoc instead.
| Attribute | Description | Availability | Required |
| sourcepath | Specify where to find source files | all | At least one of the two or nested
<sourcepath> |
| sourcepathref | Specify where to find source files by reference to a PATH defined elsewhere. | all | |
| destdir | Destination directory for output files | all | Yes, unless a doclet has been specified. |
| maxmemory | Max amount of memory to allocate to the javadoc VM | all | No |
| sourcefiles | Comma separated list of source files | all | at least one of the two
or nested <source> or <package> |
| packagenames | Comma separated list of package files (with terminating wildcard) | all | |
| packageList | The name of a file containing the packages to process | all | No |
| classpath | Specify where to find user class files | all | No |
| Bootclasspath | Override location of class files loaded by the bootstrap class loader | 1.2 | No |
| classpathref | Specify where to find user class files by reference to a PATH defined elsewhere. | all | No |
| bootclasspathref | Override location of class files loaded by the bootstrap class loader by reference to a PATH defined elsewhere. | 1.2 | No |
| Extdirs | Override location of installed extensions | 1.2 | No |
| Overview | Read overview documentation from HTML file | 1.2 | No |
| access | Access mode: one of public, protected,
package, or private |
all | No (default protected) |
| Public | Show only public classes and members | all | No |
| Protected | Show protected/public classes and members (default) | all | No |
| Package | Show package/protected/public classes and members | all | No |
| Private | Show all classes and members | all | No |
| Old | Generate output using JDK 1.1 emulating doclet | 1.2 | No |
| Verbose | Output messages about what Javadoc is doing | 1.2 | No |
| Locale | Locale to be used, e.g. en_US or en_US_WIN | 1.2 | No |
| Encoding | Source file encoding name | all | No |
| Version | Include @version paragraphs | all | No |
| Use | Create class and package usage pages | 1.2 | No |
| Author | Include @author paragraphs | all | No |
| Splitindex | Split index into one file per letter | 1.2 | No |
| Windowtitle | Browser window title for the documentation (text) | 1.2 | No |
| Doctitle | Include title for the package index(first) page (html-code) | 1.2 | No |
| Header | Include header text for each page (html-code) | 1.2 | No |
| Footer | Include footer text for each page (html-code) | 1.2 | No |
| bottom | Include bottom text for each page (html-code) | 1.2 | No |
| link | Create links to javadoc output at the given URL | 1.2 | No |
| linkoffline | Link to docs at <url> using package list at <url2> - separate the URLs by using a space character. | 1.2 | No |
| group | Group specified packages together in overview page. The format is as described below. | 1.2 | No |
| nodeprecated | Do not include @deprecated information | all | No |
| nodeprecatedlist | Do not generate deprecated list | 1.2 | No |
| notree | Do not generate class hierarchy | all | No |
| noindex | Do not generate index | all | No |
| nohelp | Do not generate help link | 1.2 | No |
| nonavbar | Do not generate navigation bar | 1.2 | No |
| serialwarn | FUTURE: Generate warning about @serial tag | 1.2 | No |
| helpfile | FUTURE: Specifies the HTML help file to use | 1.2 | No |
| stylesheetfile | Specifies the CSS stylesheet to use | 1.2 | No |
| charset | FUTURE: Charset for cross-platform viewing of generated documentation | 1.2 | No |
| docencoding | Output file encoding name | 1.1 | No |
| doclet | Specifies the class file that starts the doclet used in generating the documentation. | 1.2 | No |
| docletpath | Specifies the path to the doclet class file that is specified with the -doclet option. | 1.2 | No |
| docletpathref | Specifies the path to the doclet class file that is specified with the -doclet option by reference to a PATH defined elsewhere. | 1.2 | No |
| additionalparam | Lets you add additional parameters to the javadoc command line. Useful for doclets. Parameters containing spaces need to be quoted using ". | 1.2 | No |
| failonerror | Stop the buildprocess if the command exits with a returncode other than 0. | all | No |
| excludepackagenames | comma separated list of packages you don't want docs for. | all | No |
| defaultexcludes | indicates whether default excludes should be used
(yes | no); default excludes are used when omitted. |
all | No |
| useexternalfile | indicates whether the sourcefile name specified
in srcfiles or as nested source elements should be written to a
temporary file to make the command line shorter. Also applies to
the package names specified via the packagenames attribute or
nested package elements.
(yes | no). Default is no. |
all | No |
The arguments are comma-delimited. Each single argument is 2 space-delimited strings, where the first one is the group's title and the second one a colon delimited list of packages.
If you need to specify more than one group, or a group whose title contains a comma or a space character, using nested group elements is highly recommended.
E.g.,
group="XSLT_Packages org.apache.xalan.xslt*,XPath_Packages org.apache.xalan.xpath*"
Same as one entry in the list given by packagenames.
| Attribute | Description | Required |
| name | The package name (may be a wildcard) | Yes |
Same as one entry in the list given by excludepackagenames.
package.
Same as one entry in the list given by sourcefiles.
| Attribute | Description | Required |
| file | The source file to document | Yes |
Same as the doctitle attribute, but you can nest text
inside the element this way.
Similar to <doctitle>.
Similar to <doctitle>.
Similar to <doctitle>.
Create link to javadoc output at the given URL. This performs the same role as the link and linkoffline attributes. You can use either syntax (or both at once), but with the nested elements you can easily specify multiple occurrences of the arguments.
| Attribute | Description | Required |
| href | The URL for the external documentation you wish to link to | Yes |
| offline | True if this link is not available online at the time of generating the documentation | No |
| packagelistLoc | The location to the directory containing the package-list file for the external documentation | Only if the offline attribute is true |
Separates packages on the overview page into whatever groups you specify, one group per table. This performs the same role as the group attribute. You can use either syntax (or both at once), but with the nested elements you can easily specify multiple occurrences of the arguments.
| Attribute | Description | Required |
| title | Title of the group | Yes, unless nested <title> given |
| packages | List of packages to include in that group. Multiple packages are separated with ':'. | Yes, unless nested <package>s given |
The title may be specified as a nested <title> element
with text contents, and the packages may be listed with nested
<package> elements as for the main task.
The doclet nested element is used to specify the doclet that javadoc will
use to process the input source files. A number of the standard javadoc arguments
are actually arguments of the standard doclet. If these are specified in the javadoc
task's attributes, they will be passed to the doclet specified in the
<doclet> nested element. Such attributes should only be specified,
therefore, if they can be interpreted by the doclet in use.
If the doclet requires additional parameters, these can be specified with
<param> elements within the <doclet>
element. These paramaters are restricted to simple strings. An example usage
of the doclet element is shown below:
<javadoc ...>
<doclet name="theDoclet"
path="path/to/theDoclet">
<param name="-foo" value="foovalue"/>
<param name="-bar" value="barvalue"/>
</doclet>
</javadoc>
Javadoc's sourcepath, classpath and
bootclasspath attributes are PATH like
structure and can also be set via nested sourcepath,
classpath and bootclasspath elements
respectively.
<javadoc packagenames="com.dummy.test.*"
sourcepath="src"
excludepackagenames="com.dummy.test.doc-files.*"
defaultexcludes="yes"
destdir="docs/api"
author="true"
version="true"
use="true"
windowtitle="Test API">
<doctitle><![CDATA[<h1>Test</h1>]]></doctitle>
<bottom><![CDATA[<i>Copyright © 2000 Dummy Corp. All Rights Reserved.</i>]]></bottom>
<group title="Group 1 Packages" packages="com.dummy.test.a*"/>
<group title="Group 2 Packages" packages="com.dummy.test.b*:com.dummy.test.c*"/>
<link offline="true" href="http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/docs/api/" packagelistLoc="C:\tmp"/>
<link href="http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/products/xml/docs/api/"/>
</javadoc>
Copyright © 2001 Apache Software Foundation. All rights Reserved.