1 /******************************************************************************
5 * Copyright (C) 1997-2012 by Dimitri van Heesch.
7 * Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
8 * documentation under the terms of the GNU General Public License is hereby
9 * granted. No representations are made about the suitability of this software
10 * for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
11 * See the GNU General Public License for more details.
13 * Documents produced by Doxygen are derivative works derived from the
14 * input used in their production; they are not affected by this license.
17 /*! \mainpage Doxygen Manual
21 <img src="doxygen_logo.gif" width="634" height="197" alt="doxygen"/><br/>
28 Doxygen is a documentation system for C++, C, Java, Objective-C, Python, IDL
29 (Corba and Microsoft flavors), Fortran, VHDL, PHP, C#, and to some extent D.
31 It can help you in three ways:
33 <li> It can generate an on-line documentation browser (in HTML) and/or an
34 off-line reference manual (in \f$\mbox{\LaTeX}\f$) from a set
35 of documented source files.
36 There is also support for generating output in RTF (MS-Word),
37 PostScript, hyperlinked PDF, compressed HTML, and Unix man pages.
38 The documentation is extracted directly from the sources, which
39 makes it much easier to keep the documentation consistent with the
41 <li> You can \ref extract_all "configure" doxygen to extract the code structure
42 from undocumented source files. This is very useful to quickly
43 find your way in large source distributions.
44 You can also visualize the relations between the various elements
45 by means of include dependency graphs, inheritance diagrams,
46 and collaboration diagrams, which are all generated automatically.
47 <li> You can also use doxygen for creating normal documentation (as I did
51 Doxygen is developed under <a href="http://www.linux.org">Linux</a>
52 and Mac OS X, but is set-up to be highly portable. As a result, it
53 runs on most other Unix flavors as well. Furthermore, executables for
54 Windows are available.
56 \n This manual is divided into three parts, each of which is divided into several
59 The first part forms a user manual:
61 <li>Section \ref install discusses how to
62 <a href="http://www.doxygen.org/download.html">download</a>, compile and install
63 doxygen for your platform.
64 <li>Section \ref starting tells you how to generate your first piece of
65 documentation quickly.
66 <li>Section \ref docblocks demonstrates the various ways that code can
68 <li>Section \ref markdown show the Markdown formatting supported by doxygen.
69 <li>Section \ref lists shows how to create lists.
70 <li>Section \ref grouping shows how to group things together.
71 <li>Section \ref formulas shows how to insert formulas in the documentation.
72 <li>Section \ref diagrams describes the diagrams and graphs that doxygen can generate.
73 <li>Section \ref preprocessing explains how doxygen deals with macro definitions.
74 <li>Section \ref autolink shows how to put links to files, classes,
75 and members in the documentation.
76 <li>Section \ref output shows how to generate the various output formats
78 <li>Section \ref searching shows various ways to search in the HTML documentation.
79 <li>Section \ref customize explains how you can customize the output generated
81 <li>Section \ref custcmd show how to define and use custom commands in your comments.
82 <li>Section \ref external explains how to let doxygen create links to externally generated documentation.
83 <li>Section \ref faq gives answers to frequently asked questions.
84 <li>Section \ref trouble tells you what to do when you have problems.
87 The second part forms a reference manual:
90 <li>Section \ref features presents an overview of what doxygen can do.
91 <li>Section \ref doxygen_usage shows how to use the \c doxygen program.
92 <li>Section \ref doxywizard_usage shows how to use the \c doxywizard program.
93 <li>Section \ref config shows how to fine-tune doxygen, so it
94 generates the documentation you want.
95 <li>Section \ref commands shows an overview of the special commands that can be
96 used within the documentation.
97 <li>Section \ref htmlcmds shows an overview of the HTML commands that
98 can be used within the documentation.
99 <li>Section \ref xmlcmds shows an overview of the C# style XML commands that
100 can be used within the documentation.
103 The third part provides information for developers:
106 <li>Section \ref arch gives a global overview of how doxygen is internally
108 <li>Section \ref perlmod shows how to use the PerlMod output.
109 <li>Section \ref langhowto explains how to add support for new
113 \n<h2>Doxygen license</h2>
117 Copyright © 1997-2012 by
118 <a href="mailto:dimitri@stack.nl">Dimitri van Heesch</a>.<p>
120 Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
121 documentation under the terms of the GNU General Public License is hereby
122 granted. No representations are made about the suitability of this software
123 for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
125 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html">
126 GNU General Public License</a>
129 Documents produced by doxygen are derivative works derived from the
130 input used in their production; they are not affected by this license.
132 <h2>User examples</h2>
134 Doxygen supports a number of \ref output "output formats" where HTML is the
135 most popular one. I've gathered
137 <a href="http://www.doxygen.org/results.html">some nice examples</a>
140 some nice examples (see {\tt http://www.doxygen.org/results.html})
142 of real-life projects using doxygen.
144 These are part of a larger
146 <a href="http://www.doxygen.org/projects.html">list of projects</a>
150 list of projects that use doxygen (see {\tt http://www.doxygen.org/projects.html}).
152 If you know other projects, let <a href="mailto:dimitri@stack.nl?subject=New%20project%20using%20Doxygen">me</a>
153 know and I'll add them.
155 <h2>Commercial Support</h2>
157 I'm currently investigating the possibilities of providing
158 commercial support for doxygen. The forms of support I'm thinking of
161 <li>implementing features,
163 <li>providing priority help in answering questions.
165 To get a better understanding of the feasibility,
166 please let <a href="mailto:dimitri@stack.nl?subject=Doxygen%20Commercial%20Support">me</a> know if you
167 have a need for this type (or another type)
168 of doxygen related commercial support.
171 Although doxygen is successfully used by large number of companies and
172 open source projects already, there is always room for improvement.
174 You can submit enhancement requests in
175 <a href="https://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?product=doxygen&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&bug_severity=enhancement">the bug tracker</a>.
176 Make sure the severity of the bug report is set to "enhancement".
178 <h2>Acknowledgements</h2>
179 \addindex acknowledgements
183 Malte Zöckler and Roland Wunderling, authors of DOC++.
184 The first version of doxygen borrowed some code of an old version of DOC++.
185 Although I have rewritten practically all code since then, DOC++ has still
186 given me a good start in writing doxygen.
187 <li>All people at Qt Software, for creating a beautiful GUI Toolkit
188 (which is very useful as a Windows/Unix platform abstraction layer :-)
190 for rendering the logos.
191 <li>Harm van der Heijden for adding HTML help support.
192 <li>Wouter Slegers of
193 <a href="http://www.yourcreativesolutions.nl">Your Creative Solutions</a>
194 for registering the www.doxygen.org domain.
195 <li>Parker Waechter for adding the RTF output generator.
196 <li>Joerg Baumann, for adding conditional documentation blocks,
197 PDF links, and the configuration generator.
198 <li>Tim Mensch for adding the todo command.
199 <li>Christian Hammond for redesigning the web-site.
200 <li>Ken Wong for providing the HTML tree view code.
201 <li>Talin for adding support for C# style comments with XML markup.
202 <li>Petr Prikryl for coordinating the internationalization support.
203 All language maintainers for providing translations into many languages.
204 <li>The band <a href="http://www.porcupinetree.com">Porcupine Tree</a> for
205 providing hours of great music to listen to while coding.
206 <li>many, many others for suggestions, patches and bug reports.