# Javadoc Comments

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## PackageHtml

### Description

Checks that a package.html file exists for each package. More specifically, checks that each java file has a package.html sibling.

### Properties

name | description | type | default value
--- | --- | --- | ---
fileExtensions | file type extension to identify java files. Setting this property is typically only required if your java source files are preprocessed and the original files do not have the extension .java | String Set | java

### Example

To configure the check:

    <module name="PackageHtml"/>

### Package

com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks.javadoc

### Parent Module

Checker

## JavadocType

### Description

Checks Javadoc comments for class and interface definitions. By default, does not check for author or version tags. The scope to verify is specified using the `Scope` class and defaults to `Scope.PRIVATE`. To verify another scope, set property scope to one of the `Scope` constants. To define the format for an author tag or a version tag, set property authorFormat or versionFormat respectively to a regular expression.

Error messages about type parameters for which no param tags are present can be suppressed by defining property `allowMissingParamTags`.

### Properties

name | description | type | default value
--- | --- | --- | ---
scope | visibility scope where Javadoc comments are checked | scope | private
excludeScope | visibility scope where Javadoc comments are not checked | scope | null
authorFormat | pattern for @author tag | regular expression | null (tag not required)
versionFormat | pattern for @version tag | regular expression | null (tag not required)
allowMissingParamTags | whether to ignore errors when a class has type parameters but does not have matching param tags in the javadoc. | boolean | false
tokens | definitions to check | subset of tokens INTERFACE_DEF, CLASS_DEF | INTERFACE_DEF, CLASS_DEF,

### Examples

To configure the default check:

    <module name="JavadocType"/>

To configure the check for public scope:

    <module name="JavadocType">
       <property name="scope" value="public"/>
    </module>

To configure the check for an @author tag:

    <module name="JavadocType">
       <property name="authorFormat" value="\S"/>
    </module>

To configure the check for a CVS revision version tag:

    <module name="JavadocType">
       <property name="versionFormat" value="\$Revision.*\$"/>
    </module>

To configure the check for private classes only:

    <module name="JavadocType">
       <property name="scope" value="private"/>
       <property name="excludescope" value="package"/>
    </module>

### Package

com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks.javadoc

### Parent Module

TreeWalker

## JavadocMethod

### Description

Checks the Javadoc of a method or constructor. By default, does not check for unused throws. To allow documented `java.lang.RuntimeException`s that are not declared, set property allowUndeclaredRTE to true. The scope to verify is specified using the `Scope` class and defaults to `Scope.PRIVATE`. To verify another scope, set property scope to a different scope.

Error messages about parameters and type parameters for which no param tags are present can be suppressed by defining property `allowMissingParamTags`. Error messages about exceptions which are declared to be thrown, but for which no throws tag is present can be suppressed by defining property `allowMissingThrowsTags`. Error messages about methods which return non-void but for which no return tag is present can be suppressed by defining property `allowMissingReturnTag`.

### Properties

name | description | type | default value
--- | --- | --- | ---
scope | visibility scope where Javadoc comments are checked | scope | private
excludeScope | visibility scope where Javadoc comments are not checked | scope | null
allowUndeclaredRTE | whether to allow documented exceptions that are not declared if they are a subclass of java.lang.RuntimeException | boolean | false
allowThrowsTagsForSubclasses | whether to allow documented exceptions that are subclass of one of declared exception. | boolean | false
allowMissingParamTags | whether to ignore errors when a method has parameters but does not have matching param tags in the javadoc. | boolean | false
allowMissingThrowsTags | whether to ignore errors when a method declares that it throws exceptions but does have matching throws tags in the javadoc. | boolean | false
allowMissingReturnTag | whether to ignore errors when a method returns non-void type does have a return tag in the javadoc. | boolean | false
allowMissingJavadoc | whether to ignore errors when a method javadoc is missed. | boolean | false
allowMissingPropertyJavadoc | Whether to allow missing Javadoc on accessor methods for properties (setters and getters). The setter and getter methods must match exactly the structures below.
    public void setNumber(final int number)
    {
        mNumber = number;
    }

    public int getNumber()
    {
        return mNumber;
    }

    public boolean isSomething()
    {
        return false;
    }
| boolean | false
logLoadErrors | This check may need to load exception classes mentioned in the @throws tag to check whether they are RuntimeExceptions. If loading the class fails, this property allows to control checkstyle's error handling. If set to false (the default) a classpath configuration problem is assumed and the TreeWalker stops operating on the class completely. If set to true, checkstyle assumes a typo or refactoring problem in the javadoc and logs the problem in the normal checkstyle report (potentially masking a configuration error). | boolean | false
suppressLoadErrors | When logLoadErrors is set to true, the TreeWalker completely processes a class and displays any problems with loading exceptions as checkstyle violations. When this property is set to true, the violations generated when logLoadErrors is set true are suppressed from being reported as violations in the checkstyle report. | boolean | false
tokens | definitions to check | subset of tokens METHOD_DEF, CTOR_DEF | METHOD_DEF, CTOR_DEF

### Examples

To configure the default check:

    <module name="JavadocMethod"/>

To configure the check for public scope and to allow documentation of undeclared RuntimeExceptions:

    <module name="JavadocMethod">
       <property name="scope" value="public"/>
       <property name="allowUndeclaredRTE" value="true"/>
    </module>

To configure the check for for public scope, to allow documentation of undeclared RuntimeExceptions, while ignoring any missing param tags is:

    <module name="JavadocMethod">
      <property name="scope" value="public"/>
      <property name="allowUndeclaredRTE" value="true"/>
      <property name="allowMissingParamTags" value="true"/>
    </module>

To configure the check for methods which are in private , but not in protected scope:

    <module name="JavadocMethod">
       <property name="scope" value="private"/>
       <property name="excludeScope" value="protected"/>
    </module>

### Notes

- The classpath may need to be configured to locate the class information. The classpath configuration is dependent on the mechanism used to invoke Checkstyle.
- It can be extremely painful writing or duplicating Javadoc for a method required for an interface. Hence checkstyle supports using the convention of using a single {@inheritDoc} tag instead of all the other tags. For example, if the above method was implementing a method required by the com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.Verifier interface, then the Javadoc could be done as:

      /** {@inheritDoc} */
      public int checkReturnTag(final int aTagIndex,
                                JavadocTag[] aTags,
                                int aLineNo)

### Package

com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks.javadoc

### Parent Module

TreeWalker

## JavadocVariable

### Description

Checks that variables have Javadoc comments.

### Properties

name | description | type | default value
--- | --- | --- | ---
scope | visibility scope where Javadoc comments are checked | scope | private
excludeScope | visibility scope where Javadoc comments are not checked | scope | null

### Examples

To configure the default check:

    <module name="JavadocVariable"/>

To configure the check for public scope:

    <module name="JavadocVariable">
       <property name="scope" value="public"/>
    </module>

To configure the check for members which are in private, but not in protected scope:

    <module name="JavadocVariable">
       <property name="scope" value="private"/>
       <property name="excludeScope" value="protected"/>
    </module>

### Package

com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks.javadoc

### Parent Module

TreeWalker

## JavadocStyle

### Description

Validates Javadoc comments to help ensure they are well formed. The following checks are performed:

- Ensures the first sentence ends with proper punctuation (That is a period, question mark, or exclamation mark). Javadoc automatically places the first sentence in the method summary table and index. With out proper punctuation the Javadoc may be malformed.
- Check text for Javadoc statements that do not have any description. This includes both completely empty Javadoc, and Javadoc with only tags such as @param and @return.
- Check text for incomplete HTML tags. Verifies that HTML tags have corresponding end tags and issues an "Unclosed HTML tag found:" error if not. An "Extra HTML tag found:" error is issued if an end tag is found without a previous open tag.

These checks were patterned after the checks made by the DocCheck doclet available from Sun.

### Properties

name | description | type | default value
--- | --- | --- | ---
scope | visibility scope where Javadoc comments are checked | scope | private
excludeScope | visibility scope where Javadoc comments are not checked | scope | null
checkFirstSentence | Whether to check the first sentence for proper end of sentence. | boolean | true
checkEmptyJavadoc | Whether to check if the Javadoc is missing a describing text. | boolean | false
checkHtml | Whether to check for incomplete html tags. | boolean | true
tokens | definitions to check | subset of tokens INTERFACE_DEF, CLASS_DEF, METHOD_DEF, CTOR_DEF, VARIABLE_DEF | INTERFACE_DEF, CLASS_DEF, METHOD_DEF, CTOR_DEF, VARIABLE_DEF

### Examples

To configure the default check:

    <module name="JavadocStyle"/>

To configure the check for public scope:

    <module name="JavadocStyle">
       <property name="scope" value="public"/>
    </module>

To configure the check for javadoc which is in private, but not in package scope:

    <module name="JavadocStyle">
       <property name="scope" value="private"/>
       <property name="excludeScope" value="package"/>
    </module>

To configure the check to turn off first sentence checking:

    <module name="JavadocStyle">
       <property name="checkFirstSentence" value="false"/>
    </module>

### Package

com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks

### Parent Module

TreeWalker

## WriteTag

### Description

Outputs a JavaDoc tag as information. Can be used e.g. with the stylesheets that sort the report by author name. To define the format for a tag, set property tagFormat to a regular expression. This check uses two different severity levels. The normal one is used for reporting when the tag is missing. The additional one (tagSeverity) is used for the level of reporting when the tag exists.

### Properties

name | description | type | default value
--- | --- | --- | ---
tag | Name of tag | String | null
tagFormat | Format of tag | regular expression | null
tagSeverity | Severity level when tag is found and printed | severity | info

### Examples

An example of how to configure the check for printing author name is:

    <module name="WriteTag">
       <property name="tag" value="@author"/>
       <property name="tagFormat" value="\S"/>
    </module>

An example of how to configure the check to print warnings if an "@incomplete" tag is found, and not print anything if it is not found:

    <module name="WriteTag">
       <property name="tag" value="@incomplete"/>
       <property name="tagFormat" value="\S"/>
       <property name="severity" value="ignore"/>
       <property name="tagSeverity" value="warning"/>
    </module>

### Package

com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.checks

### Parent Module

TreeWalker

Copyright © 2001-2005, Oliver Burn