Program Documentation

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
** Documentation can be inferred from mailing lists

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

References

See also

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

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