Creating and Viewing AppleDoc/HeaderDoc/Doxygen Documentation

Basics

AppleDoc/HeaderDoc/Doxygen documentation comments can be placed across the source code and used for generating full-fledged documentation in various formats. In case you have a project documented this way, you can easily run documentation tool from the built-in terminal in AppCode. Besides, AppCode allows you getting more value out of documentationcomments inside the IDE itself.

AppCode includes the information from documentation comments into the Quick Documentation pop-up:

Viewing Documentation

Information from documentation comments is included in Quick Documentation pop-up in addition to the type information. To invoke the documentation pop-up, do the following:

1. Place the caret at the desired symbol or at the @param command of the documentation comment.
2. Press F1.

Alternatively, when the checkbox Show quick doc on mouse move in the editor settings is selected, just move your mouse pointer over the desired symbol.

If function parameters are documented separately from the function description, AppCode will merge all the comments and show you the full function’s signature documentation.

Creating Comment from Scratch

To create a documentation comment for a function from scratch, do the following:

1. Type each of the following symbols: ///, //!, /** or /*! at your choice, followed by ⏎.
2. Fill a stub that is created with the required documentation text.

   

Reliable Rename

While changing a function name or its parameters names, you definitely need documentation comments updated accordingly. AppCode does that for you in case you are using Rename refactoring:

Typing Assistance

Basic typing assistance for documentation commands is provisioned by AppCode auto-complete feature.

Note, that this feature is currently available for only for Objective-C/C/C++ and only common commands for AppleDoc/HeaderDoc/Doxygen are available in the completion. The recent list of the commands that are not supported for the moment can be found here.