Comments can be used to include related links, information, and terms. Net project that has xml commenting enabled, the xml documentation file we named earlier is copied over along with the binary to the. The situation is however different, when it comes to commenting an api that will be publicly available to the endusers. The more people that look at my feedback about the xml documentation and vote for for it. This question was asked on stack overflow recently, and it got me thinking about a more elegant and efficient method for reading the xml documentation comments from a class, method, property, etc at runtime. It provides a lowerlevel abstraction over the xml file structure. You can automatically generate an xml skeleton for your types and members, and then provide summaries, descriptive documentation for each parameter, and other remarks. The xml classes support parsing and writing xml, editing xml data in memory, data validation, and xslt transformation. Xmlnodelist class represents an ordered collection of nodes. The xml file can be consumed or otherwise manipulated as xml.
Net documentation compiler is directly integrated in visual studio so it will assist you with complete process of creating a documentation. Recommended xml tags for documentation comments visual basic 07202015. Select the scope where you want to reformat xml doc comments. The more people that look at my feedback about the xml documentation and vote for for it, the more likely that microsoft will restore it. With the appropriate setup, the xml documentation is automatically emitted into an xml file with the same name as your project and the. Visual basic provides an easy way to automatically create xml documentation for projects. These samples show how to extract pdf table to xml extensible markup language file using bytescout pdf extractor sdk. The document type doctype declaration consists of an internal, or references an external document type definition dtd. Net framework that makes generating xml files much easier. Jun 12, 2011 xml file provided with the code sample is stocks. Net projects, with custom topics, intellisense and f1 context sensitive help. A comment allows you to insert notes or personal observations inside an xml file. Below is an example of a notation comment that should be used when. Office openxmlextensible markup language,is a document format that is both humanreadable and machinereadable.
Net are different languages, they still have very much in common and for the fairness of this experimental upgrade, i didnt change and didnt correct anything in the code. You can use additional tools to process the xml file into documentation. The xml file will be loaded into an xmldocument and then using xpath query expression, all the nodes elements with specified particular name will be selected. Theres a 14day trial and licenses for individuals or teams. Guidelines to better xml doc comments and documentation. Add additional code that uses the type or member with the new xml documentation comments. A comment is used to leave a note or to temporarily edit out a portion of xml code. Xml is the universal language for data exchange on the web. Compile the code to generate an xml file containing the documentation comments. I have to go to each methodclassproperty and write. Select one or more items in the solution explorer to reformat xml doc comments in the files under these nodes and their child items. Sep 06, 2017 having code with xml documentation is great, as it allows generating nice api documentation and provides useful help while writing code. Xml documentation comments, like all other comments, are ignored by the compiler. I voted for xml comments to be possible everywhere including any free skus like the express editions.
Docomatic source code documentation and help authoring. Innovasys, producer of leading edge documentation and. Net which enables to perform many word document processing tasks. Xml comment checker is an application that will check the xml documentation for a. In source code files, comments having a certain form can be used to direct a tool to produce xml from those comments and the source code elements, which they precede. The visual basic compiler can process documentation comments in your code to an xml file. Set the caret anywhere in the file to reformat xml doc comments to the file. Net, users can save word docdocx to stream, save as web response and convert word docdocx to xml, rtf, emf. Sandcastle produces compiled html help files it doesnt modify.
Xmldocument reads the entire xml content into memory and then allow you to navigate back and forward in it or even query the xml document using the xpath technology. This project is initiated to generate proper xml documentation files with intelligent documentation from projects without using complex ways of documentation. So the 3rd party assembly you are talking about will not have any information for you to extract comments from. Having code with xml documentation is great, as it allows generating nice api documentation and provides useful help while writing code. Instead, this tool will automatically generate your powershell modules help file from xml doc comments in your source code. Reading an xml file means that we are reading the information embedded in xml tags in an xml file. Xml comments are allowed on code constructs such as types and type members. A comment is a character, a line or a paragraph that is not considered as part of the xml code that needs to be processed. Net code for your internal purposes, you usually dont care about their formal perfectness. Xmlwriter has an intuitive, customizable user interface with advanced editing functions such as bookmarks, autoindent. The dtd defines the constraints on the structure of an xml document.
Xml comments can be used to document almost all definitions except. Comments using such syntax are called documentation comments. Vsdocman visual studio documentation generator and. Net vbscript visual basic 6 in these screenshots you. Net framework sdk documentation, go to xml documentation comments in sourcefiles. Documenting your code with xml comments microsoft docs. Net a lot of reasons can be attributed to the common requirement of office openxml to pdf conversion. Nets xml source documentation to produce professional, indexed, and searchable. With its singlesource approach it generates many different kinds of output from a single documentation base. Ive seen many, many requests on the microsoft newsgroups asking how you can insert a picture into a word document without saving it to the file system first. In solution explorer rightclick on the web api project and click properties. Xmlwriter is an awardwinning validating xml editor for windows that supports xml, xsl, dtd, xsd schema, css, xhtml, html and text files.
Submains ghostdoc is another commercial tool to help you create and edit xml comments and generate help from your comments and code. Net library specially designed for developers to create, read, write, convert and print word document files from any. Assuming the xml documentation file is in the same location as the executable, its ludicrously simple to get the xml comments for a reflected member. Net, activex, database, java, javascript, web service and xml schema xsd documentation. Although xml is supposed to be selfdescribing data, you may still come across some instances where an xml comment might be necessary. Net framework xml documentation files, its a good idea to make a copy beforehand. Xml namespace provide a comprehensive and integrated set of classes, allowing you to work with xml documents and data. Take advantage of xml comments part 2 visual studio. This chapter explains how comments work in xml documents. I have to go to each methodclassproperty and write and then press enter.
This has come up a few times for me so i thought id share a quick method for doing this. Xmlreader is a faster and less memory consuming alternative. The simplest solution to this problem is to use outlining to collapse the xml comments using the outliner and only expand when needed. This section contains the online version of wattle softwares xml guide a guide to the w3c xml 1. Take advantage of xml comments part 2 on vb columnist joe kunk continues his examination of xml comments by extending the xml comment vocabulary with additional default tags in visual basic and showing how to process the resulting xml file into apistyle reference documentation using the sandcastle help file builder. Nov 25, 2010 it is now the preferred object model for reading, querying and otherwise operating upon xml documents or even fragments, the implementation doesnt care. As im currently reading a book on linq, i figured this would be a good chance to make use of the new xdocument class from linqtoxml. Intellisense displays the text from the tag for the type or member.
With the right level of abstraction, a type such as xmlwriter can make your life easier. Net word comment, inserted by users to show opinions or additional information about words, phrases or paragraphs, is often appeared in the document margins. In visual basic, you can document your code using xml. Finally, there is tag in sandcastle its definitely better to use it than to copy xml comments, but it has few disadvantages in comparison to fixml. See how easy the code commenting with xml doc comments can be with powerful comment templates and sophisticated wysiwyg comment editor.
This file is located in the same directory as the output. Net assembly so that visual studio and other ides can use intellisense to. The xmlreader class allows you run through the xml string one element at a time, while allowing you to look at the value, and then moves on to the next xml element vb. Improved xml documentation support in resharper and rider. Guidelines to better xml doc comments and documentation helixoft. This means that a comment can include plain text, formulas, expressions, or even xml code as long as you know that that xml code will not be validated. The xml documentation facility is built into all visual studio versions. Recommended xml tags for documentation comments visual basic. Net xml docs inheriting documentation stack overflow. Reading xml documentation at runtime brad smiths coding blog. It can also have a combination of both internal and external dtds. The comments are added as notes or lines for understanding the purpose of an xml code.
Net core from the command line, you can add a generatedocumentationfile element to the section of your. Ghostdoc is a visual studio extension for developers who need to generate xml comments from source code using customizable templates, maintain clean and uptodate documentation, produce help documentation in multiple formats, use intelligent source code spell checker in visual studio, and more. Take advantage of xml comments part 2 visual studio magazine. Addpicture and secondly using words xml support insertxml. Remove all comments in any file with a click of a button.
Xml comments have the exact same syntax as html comments. Now, if those assemblies can generate xml files that contain this documentation, probably using sandcastle or ndoc, then you can read those xml files as you are wanting to do. Net platform with fast and high quality performance. Insert xml documentation comments visual studio microsoft docs. Net extensible markup language xml is a metamarkup language that provides a format for describing structured data. This example application described in this blog illustrates both methods for inserting a picture firstly using the word object model inlineshapes. It takes source code and comments, adds conceptual topics and external input and produces documentation from it. First, enable xml documentation file creation during build. One of the problems with adding xml comments to source code is that they can obscure the code itself. This tools allows you to use xml documentation tags in vb. The xml comments are never part of the assembly unit. The xmlreader class allows you run through the xml string one element at a time, while allowing you to look at the value, and then moves on to the next xml element.
Inserting images into word documents using xml xml. The xmlwriter type introduces an abstract data type in the vb. Here is its web page and download page broken links. Documenting your code with xml visual basic microsoft docs.
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