Generating API documentation?

Subject: Generating API documentation?
From: "Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 08:13:14 -0700

Geoff Lane's current project <<includes documenting an API. The
source code is in C. ... Can anyone recommend a utility that can
scan the code and produce basic API documentation?>>

The only utility I'm aware of that can produce API documentation is
the original developer. <g> I'm not sure what you're after here, but
based on what you've described, it seems like you want to be able to
create a list of the API calls in the code combined with the embedded
comments that describe them. If that's the case, it seems to me that
the simplest way to do this is to open the file in any word
processor, and scroll down through the file, deleting any irrelevant
text. But the embedded comments I've seen are usually cryptic and
inadequate for generating documentation. Unless your company has
fairly rigorous guidelines for documenting code, you may still have a
lot of work to do.

This isn't what I'd ordinarily consider to be API documentation,
though; that's usually a list of all the calls, their parameters, and
any usage notes, and you can't generate that automatically from raw
code because these aspects are all things that appear "under the
hood". Can you explain your problem more precisely?
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"Patience comes to those who wait."--Anon.


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