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0068 Documentation comment

Documentation comment is used to produce an HTML file that documents your program. A Javadoc comment occupies one or more lines of source code. The documentation comment begins with a /** and ends with a */. Everything from /** through */ is ignored by the compiler. The following example demonstrates a Javadoc comment: /** * Application entry point * * @param args array of command-line arguments passed to this method */ public static void main(String[] args) { // TODO code application logic here } This example begins with a Javadoc comment that describes the main() method. /** and */ contains a description of the method, which could include HTML tags such as <p> and <code>/</code>, and the @param Javadoc tag (an @-prefixed instruction). The following list identifies several commonly used tags: @author identifies the source code's author. @deprecated identifies a source code entity that should no longer be used. @param identifies one of a method's parameters. @see provides a see-also reference. @since identifies the software release where the entity first originated. @return identifies the kind of value that the method returns. The following code has more documentation comments /** * A simple class for introducing a Java application. * * @author yourName */ public class HelloWorld { /** * Application entry point * * @param args * array of command-line arguments passed to this method */ public static void main(String[] args) { System.out.println("Hello, world!"); } } We can extract these documentation comments into a set of HTML files by using the JDK's javadoc tool, as follows: javadoc HelloWorld.java javadoc defaults to generating HTML-based documentation for public classes and public/protected members of these classes.