Documentation generator explained

A documentation generator is a programming tool that generates software documentation intended for programmers (API documentation) or end users (end-user guide), or both, from a set of source code files, and in some cases, binary files. Some generators, such as Javadoc, can use special comments to drive the generation. Doxygen is an example of a generator that can use all of these methods.

Types of generation

Document generation can be divided in several types:

• Batch generation (generic technique)
• Text block correspondence (documents created based on pre-defined text blocks)
• Forms (forms for websites)
• Documentation synthesis:
  • Documentation can be inferred from code
  • Documentation can be inferred from execution traces^[1]

Some integrated development environments provide interactive access to documentation, code metadata, etc.

See also

• Comparison of documentation generators
• Template processor
• Static code analysis
• Literate programming
• Integrated development environment

Notes and References

1. Book: Zhang . Sai . Zhang . Cheng . Ernst . Michael . 2011 26th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2011) . Automated documentation inference to explain failed tests . 2011 . 63–72 . 10.1109/ASE.2011.6100145. 978-1-4577-1639-3 . 14846118 . http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/mernst/pubs/test-documentation-ase2011.pdf .