JDcX - Javadoc Doclet eXtension

The Javadoc Doclet eXtension - JDcX - is a small framework for building configurable and flexible doclets for the Javadoc Tool. JDcX uses component-like construction in addition to object-orientation and framework techniques as a general approach to comprehensive configurability.

The framework contains the infrastructure of the doclets and supports the implementing of the plugable, component-like parts. XML configuration files describe how these constituent parts co-operate and allow the adaptation and extension of the doclets - and thereby of the documentation generated - without recompiling. In addition, JDcX supports different output formats by separating the writing of the documentation from its generation.

JDcX has been developed by Rudolf Ramler as part of the thesis Konfigurierbares Generieren von Dokumentation für Java-Programme (in German) at the Department of Business Informatics, Software Engineering Group, Johannes Kepler University of Linz.

The framework and the additional examples are free software. Redistribution and use of this software in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted. However, the author would appreciate to be notified of any use of the framework.

This software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied. In no event shall the author be liable for any damages arising in any way out of the use of this software.

Prerequisites

The framework requires the following packages:

• com.sun.javadoc and com.sun.tools.doclets, part of the Java 2 SDK
• javax.xml.parsers, org.xml.sax, and org.w3c.dom, from the Java API for XML Parsing, Release 1.0

The following exampe doclets are based on the JDcX framework. They demonstrate how to use the JDcX framework, but they were also used to generate documentation about the framework.

• Nutshell - Generates quick-reference documentation. The outline of the documentation generated by this doclet has been derived from the quick reference section of the book Flanagan, D.: Java in a Nutshell - A Desktop Quick Reference, 2nd Ed., O'Reilly 1997. Since the original structure has been optimized for printing, the documentation generated by the Nutshell doclet is a printable version by default.

• Statistics - The documentation generated by this example doclet provides an overview in numbers about the program to document. Mainly three types of statistics are produced: Overall statistics, package statistics, and class statistics. To use the statistics generated by this doclet properly, the Comma-Separated Value format has been added. This output format allows the statistic tables to be imported by common spread-sheet tools.