Javadoc is a documentation generator from Sun Microsystems for generating API documentation in HTML format from Java source code.The "doc comments" format used by Javadoc is the de facto industry standard for documenting Java classes. Some IDEs, such as Netbeans and Eclipse automatically generate...
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A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
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PHP code. It allows external document generators like phpDocumentor
PhpDocumentor
phpDocumentor is an open source documentation generator written in PHP. It automatically parses PHP source code and produces readable API and source code documentation in a variety of formats. phpDocumentor generates documentation based on PHPDoc-formatted comments and the structure of the source...
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
An integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development...
Zend Studio is a commercial, proprietary integrated development environment for PHP developed by Zend Technologies, based on the PHP Development Tools plugin for the Eclipse platform ....
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JetBrains PhpStorm is a commercial IDE for PHP built on JetBrains' IntelliJ IDEA platform.PhpStorm provides intelligent editor for PHP code, HTML and JavaScript with on-the-fly code analysis and automated refactoring for PHP and JavaScript code. Code completion supports PHP 5.3 including namespaces...
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to interpret variable types and other ambiguities in the loosely typed language and to provide improved code completion, type hinting and debugging.
PHPDoc supports documentation of both object-oriented and procedural
Procedural programming
Procedural programming can sometimes be used as a synonym for imperative programming , but can also refer to a programming paradigm, derived from structured programming, based upon the concept of the procedure call...
code.
DocBlock
A DocBlock is an extended C++-style PHP comment that begins with "/**" and has an "*" at the beginning of every line. DocBlocks precede the element they are documenting. Any line within a DocBlock that doesn't begin with a * will be ignored.
To document function "foo", place the DocBlock immediately before the function declaration:
/**
* This is a DocBlock comment
*/
function foo
{
}
This example will apply the DocBlock to "define('me',2);" instead of to "function foo":
/**
* DocBlock for function foo?
*
* No, this will be for the constant me!
*/
define('me',2);
function foo($param = me)
{
}
define statements, functions, classes, class methods, and class vars, include statements, and global variables can all be documented, see Elements of the source code that can be documented
A DocBlock contains three basic segments in this order:
Short Description
Long Description
Tags
The Short Description starts on the first line, and can be terminated with a blank line or a period. A period inside a word (like example.com or 0.1 %) is ignored. If the Short Description would become more than three lines long, only the first line is taken. The Long Description continues for as many lines as desired and may contain HTML markup for display formatting. Here is a sample DocBlock with a Short and a Long Description:
/**
* return the date of Easter
*
* Using the formula from "Formulas that are way too complicated for anyone to
* ever understand except for me" by Irwin Nerdy, this function calculates the
* date of Easter given a date in the Ancient Mayan Calendar, if you can also
* guess the birthday of the author.
*/
Optionally, you may enclose all paragraphs in a <p></p> tag. Be careful, if the first paragraph does not begin with <p>, phpDocumentor will assume that the DocBlock is using the simple double linebreak to define paragraph breaks as in:
/**
* Short desc
*
* Long description first sentence starts here
* and continues on this line for a while
* finally concluding here at the end of
* this paragraph
*
* The blank line above denotes a paragraph break
*/
Here is an example of using <p>
/**
* Short desc
*
*
Long description first sentence starts here
* and continues on this line for a while
* finally concluding here at the end of
* this paragraph
* This text is completely ignored! it is not enclosed in p tags
*
This is a new paragraph
*/
phpDocumentor also supports JavaDoc's DocBlock format through the command-line option -j, --javadocdesc. Due to the non-XHTML compliant unmatched p tag, it is highly recommend to avoid this syntax whenever possible
/**
*
* Short desc is only to the first period.
* This means a sentence like:
* "Parses Mr./Mrs. out of $_GET." will
* parse a short description of "Parses Mr."
* which is rather silly. Long description is
* the entire DocBlock description including the
* Short desc, and paragraphs begin where p is like:
*
* The p above denotes a paragraph break
*/
phpDocumentor will convert all whitespace into a single space in the long description, use paragraph breaks to define newlines, or <pre>, as discussed in the next section.
DocBlock Description Details
In some parsers the long and short description of a DocBlock is parsed for a few select HTML tags that determine additional formatting. Because not all HTML is allowed, they will generally be converted into plain text or more content specific tags. For example, a <b> tag may be converted into <emphasis> in DocBook.
Here is a list of tags supported by phpDocumentor:
<b> -- emphasize/bold text
<code> -- Use this to surround php code, some converters will highlight it
<br> -- hard line break, may be ignored by some converters
<i> -- italicize/mark as important
<kbd> -- denote keyboard input/screen display
<li> -- list item
<ol> -- ordered list
<p> -- If used to enclose all paragraphs, otherwise it will be considered text
<pre> -- Preserve line breaks and spacing, and assume all tags are text (like XML's CDATA)
<samp> -- denote sample or examples (non-php)
<ul> -- unordered list
<var> -- denote a variable name
For the rare case when the text "<b>" is needed in a DocBlock, use a double delimiter as in <<b>>. phpDocumentor will automatically translate that to the physical text "<b>".
Using <code> and <pre>
Both <code> and <pre> ignore any HTML listed above (except for their closing tags).
DocBlock Templates
The purpose of a DocBlock template is to reduce redundant typing. For instance, if a large number of class variables are private, one would use a DocBlock template to mark them as private. DocBlock templates simply augment any normal DocBlocks found in the template block.
A DocBlock template is distinguished from a normal DocBlock by its header. Here is the most basic DocBlock template:
/**#@+
*
*/
The text that marks this as a DocBlock template is "/**#@+" - all 6 characters must be present. DocBlock templates are applied to all documentable elements until the ending template marker:
/**#@-*/
Note that all 8 characters must appear as "/**#@-*/" in order for phpDocumentor to recognize them as a template.
Page-level DocBlocks
A page-level DocBlock is the only DocBlock that cannot precede the element that it is documenting, as there is no way to precede a file. To solve this issue, the way phpDocumentor finds a page-level DocBlock is to parse the first DocBlock in a file as the page-level DocBlock, with certain conditions.
/**
* Page-level DocBlock
*/
define('oops','Page-level DocBlock it is not!');
?>
This last example has one DocBlock, and it is the first DocBlock in a file, but it is not a Page-level DocBlock. How can phpDocumentor tell the difference between a Page-level DocBlock and any other DocBlock? Simple:
/**
* Pretend this is a file
*
* Page-level DocBlock is here because it is the first DocBlock
* in the file, and contains a @package tag
* @package pagepackage
*/
define("almost","Now the Page-level DocBlock is for the page, and the Define has no docblock");
?>
In phpDocumentor version 1.2.2, a Page-level DocBlock is the first DocBlock in a file if it contains a @package tag. However, this example will raise a warning like WARNING in test.php on line 8: Page-level DocBlock precedes "define almost", use another DocBlock to document the source element. You can eliminate the warning by adding documentation to the define as follows:
/**
* Page-level DocBlock
* @package pagepackage
*/
/**
* Define DocBlock
*/
define("ahhhh","Now the Page-level DocBlock is for the page, and the Define DocBlock for the define");
?>
Now, the page has its documentation, and the define has its own documentation.
So, a DocBlock is a page-level DocBlock IF AND ONLY IF it is both:
The first DocBlock in a file
Either:
Contains a @package tag, or
Is immediately followed by another DocBlock for any documentable PHP element (this is deprecated, always use a @package tag)
A Page-level DocBlock may have any of the standard phpDocumentor Tags (see Standard phpDocumentor Tags) plus the following tags:
@package
@subpackage
phpDocumentor will not document a file like the first example, there must be at least one documentable PHP element in the file.
Tags
Tags are single words prefixed by a "@" symbol. Tags inform parsers how to present information and modify display of documentation as well as allow the IDE to define variable types. All tags are optional, but if you use a tag, they do have specific requirements to parse properly.
Common tags
Tag
Usage
Description
@abstract
Documents an abstract class, class variable or method.
@access
public, private or protected
Documents access control for an element. @access private indicates that documentation of element be prevented.
@author
author name
Documents the author of the current element.
@copyright
name date
Documents copyright information.
@deprecated
version
Documents a method as deprecated.
@deprec
same as @deprecated
@example
/path/to/example
Documents the location of an external saved example file.
@exception
documents an exception thrown by a method — also see @throws.
@global
type $globalvarname
Documents a global variable or its use in a function or method.
@ignore
Prevents the documentation of an element
@internal
private information for advanced developers
@link
URL
@name
global variable name
Specifies an alias for a variable. For example, $GLOBALS['myvariable'] becomes $myvariable
@magic
phpdoc.de compatibility
@package
name of a package
Documents a group of related classes and functions.
@param
type [$varname] description
@return
type description
This tag should not be used for constructors or methods defined with a void return type.
@see
element
Documents an association to any element (global variable, include, page, class, function, define, method, variable).
@since
version
Documents when a method was added to a class.
@static
Documents a static class or method
@staticvar
Documents a static variable's use in a function or class
@subpackage
@throws
Documents an exception thrown by a method.
@todo
Documents things that need to be done to the code at a later date.
@var
type
a data type for a class variable
@version
Provides the version number of a class or method.
In addition, some parsers allow two additional inline tags: {@id}, used to allow direct linking to sections in a tutorial, and {@toc}, used to generate a table of contents from {@id}s in the file. Think of {@id} like an <a name="idname"> HTML tag as it serves the same function.
For more in depth discussion of PHPDoc tags, see http://manual.phpdoc.org/HTMLSmartyConverter/PHP/phpDocumentor/tutorial_tags.pkg.html
Packages
To understand the role of packages and how to use @package, it is important to know the logic behind packaging in PHP. The quest for structured programming led to the invention of functions, then classes, and finally packages. Traditionally, a re-usable software module was a collection of variables, constants and functions that could be used by another software package. PHP is an example of this model, as there are many extensions that consist of constants and functions like the tokenizer extension. One can think of the tokenizer extension as a package: it is a complete set of data, variables and functions that can be used in other programs. A more structured format of this model is of course objects, or classes. A class contains variables and functions. A single class packages together related functions and variables to be re-used.
phpDocumentor defines package in two ways:
Functions, Constants and Global Variables are grouped into files (by the filesystem), which are in turn grouped into packages using the @package tag in a page-level DocBlock
Methods and Class Variables are grouped into classes (by PHP), which are in turn grouped into packages in a Class DocBlock
These two definitions of package are exclusive. In other words, it is possible to have classes of a different package of the file that contains it.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
