Documenting with JavaDoc

Javadoc is a tool that comes with the JDK that can be used to generate documentation of classes directly from properly commented code. It requires the use of a specific type of commenting that is different from the ones seen in Chapter 1, Getting Started. There, we saw that comments can be added to code using either // or /* or */. JavaDoc uses a specific type of marking to detect what comments were intentionally made for documentation purposes. Javadoc comments are contained within /** and */. A simple example follows.

Example18.java

1  /**
2   * Anonymous class example
3   * This example shows the declaration of an inner class extending
4   * an existing class and overriding a method. It can be used as a
5   * technique to modify an existing method for something more suitable
6   * to our purpose.
7   *
8   * @author Joe Smith
9 &...