This tip documents some very simple command lines for using the javadoc utility that comes with the Java SDK. This is pretty simple stuff really, but if you are not using the facility often its easy to forget the command line to generate the documentation.

Creating Documentation with the Default Package

The following command line creates documentation for packages that are in the default package. (They have no package statement at the start of the Java file.)

javadoc -private -d ../docs/ *.java

The options are as follows:

• -private Documents all methods and data members private or above
• -d Specifies where the html documentation files should be stored
• *.java Scan all the .java file in the current directory to build the documentation.