Generating XML documentation for J#

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Generating XML documentation for J#

I'm trying to port a core library written in Java to J#.  It has worked well so far.  But now I need to create .NET compatible documentation for this library, and I'm having problems.

I know I can make Visual Studio 2005 generate an XML documentation file for my vjsproj, but I need to do this from a command-line build environment.  I've been playing with MSBUILD, but I just can't seem to find the proper incantation to make it create the XML documentation file.

Any ideas at all on this topic would be appreciated.

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Generating XML documentation for J#

  • mjepsen

    I guess it is not possible to generate XML documentation from command line in VJ# because compiler doesn't expose this option to user. You need to use Visual Studio to do this.



  • _w_

    Thanks for the more complete explanation. 

    The lack of this feature makes it impossible to integrate documentation creation/generation in an automated build environment (ours is CruiseControl).  I hope your team has time to address this issue soon.

    Regards, Lori

  • Philippe Jan

    Well, now I am confused.  I thought the whole point of MSBUILD was to expose all parts of the build process to the developer.  If Visual Studio is using MSBUILD under the covers, and Visual Studio is generating the XML documentation, then there ought to be a way to do this with MSBUILD.

    From the Microsoft.VisualJSharp.targets file (which is included in my project file),  I can see:

    <ItemGroup>
        <DocFileItem Include="$(DocumentationFile)" Condition="'$(DocumentationFile)'!=''">
           <InProject>false</InProject>
        </DocfileItem>
    </ItemGroup>

    And:

    <Target
        Name="CoreCompile"
        ...
        <Vjc
            ...
           DocumentationFile="@(DocFileItem)"
           ...

    So the project format seems to allow this... I guess I just don't understand why it works in Visual Studio and not MSBUILD.  Is this something I should take up in the MSBUILD group

  • MartinaM

    Hi,
    Your point is absolutely genuine. There is this property DocumentationFile in targets file but it is just a dummy stub for future implementation and consistency across all languages. In other languages, like c#, XML generation is supported by compiler. They have a compiler switch "/doc:" for this purpose. But unfortunately due to some reasons, J# compiler doesn't support that in Whidbey.

    In Whidbey, J# supports xml file generation through Visual Studio IDE only. Our implementation of this feature uses J# codemodel internally and codemodel works only if project and files are opened in IDE.

    We are really sorry for the inconvenience. This is one of the feature we would like to implement in our next release.

    Thanks.

  • Generating XML documentation for J#
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