C Sharp (programming Language) - XML Documentation System

XML Documentation System

C#'s documentation system is similar to Java's Javadoc, but based on XML. Two methods of documentation are currently supported by the C# compiler.

Single-line documentation comments, such as those commonly found in Visual Studio generated code, are indicated on a line beginning with ///.

public class Foo { ///

A summary of the method.

/// A description of the parameter. /// Remarks about the method. public static void Bar(int firstParam) {} }

Multi-line documentation comments, while defined in the version 1.0 language specification, were not supported until the .NET 1.1 release. These comments start with slash-asterisk-asterisk (/**) and end asterisk-slash (*/).

public class Foo { /**

A summary of the method.

* A description of the parameter. * Remarks about the method. */ public static void Bar(int firstParam) {} }

Note there are some stringent criteria regarding white space and XML documentation when using the slash/asterisk/asterisk (/**) technique.

This code block:

/** *

* A summary of the method.

*/

produces a different XML comment from this code block:

/** *

A summary of the method.

*/

Syntax for documentation comments and their XML markup is defined in a non-normative annex of the ECMA C# standard. The same standard also defines rules for processing of such comments, and their transformation to a plain XML document with precise rules for mapping of CLI identifiers to their related documentation elements. This allows any C# IDE or other development tool to find documentation for any symbol in the code in a certain well-defined way.