JSDoc 3

An API documentation generator for JavaScript.

Want to contribute to JSDoc? Please read CONTRIBUTING.md.

Installation and Usage

You can run JSDoc on either Node.js or Mozilla Rhino.

Node.js

Native support for Node.js is available in JSDoc 3.3.0 and later. JSDoc supports Node.js 0.10 and later.

Installing JSDoc for Node.js

You can install JSDoc in your project's node_modules folder, or you can install it globally.

To install the latest alpha version:

npm install jsdoc@"<=3.3.0"

To install the latest development version:

npm install git+https://github.com/jsdoc3/jsdoc.git

Note: If you install JSDoc globally, do not use sudo npm install. This may prevent you from running JSDoc as a normal user. If you cannot install global packages without sudo, please fix your npm directory permissions.

Running JSDoc with Node.js

If you installed JSDoc locally, the JSDoc command-line tool is available in ./node_modules/.bin. To generate documentation for the file yourJavaScriptFile.js:

./node_modules/.bin/jsdoc yourJavaScriptFile.js

Or if you installed JSDoc globally, simply run the jsdoc command:

jsdoc yourJavaScriptFile.js

By default, the generated documentation is saved in a directory named out. You can use the --destination (-d) option to specify another directory.

Run jsdoc --help for a complete list of command-line options.

Mozilla Rhino

All versions of JSDoc 3 run on a customized version of Mozilla Rhino, which requires Java. You can run JSDoc 3 on Java 1.6 and later.

Installing JSDoc for Mozilla Rhino

To install JSDoc, download a .zip file for the latest development version or a previous release.

You can also use git to clone the JSDoc repository:

git clone git+https://github.com/jsdoc3/jsdoc.git

The JSDoc repository includes a customized version of Mozilla Rhino. Make sure your Java classpath does not include any other versions of Rhino. (On OS X, you may need to remove the file ~/Library/Java/Extensions/js.jar.)

Note: In JSDoc 3.3.0 and later, if you need to run JSDoc on Mozilla Rhino, do not install JSDoc with npm. Use one of the methods described above.

Running JSDoc with Mozilla Rhino

On OS X, Linux, and other POSIX systems, to generate documentation for the file yourJavaScriptFile.js:

./jsdoc yourJavaScriptFile.js

Or on Windows:

jsdoc yourJavaScriptFile.js

By default, the generated documentation is saved in a directory named out. You can use the --destination (-d) option to specify another directory.

Run jsdoc --help for a complete list of command-line options.

Templates and Build Tools

The JSDoc community has created numerous templates and other tools to help you generate and customize your documentation. Here are just a few:

Templates

• jaguarjs-jsdoc (example)
• DocStrap
• jsdoc3Template (example)

Build Tools

• JSDoc Grunt plugin
• JSDoc ant task

For More Information

• Documentation is available at Use JSDoc.
• Contribute to the docs at jsdoc3/jsdoc3.github.com.
• Ask for help on the JSDoc Users mailing list.
• Post questions tagged jsdoc to Stack Overflow.

License

JSDoc 3 is copyright (c) 2011-2014 Michael Mathews micmath@gmail.com and the contributors to JSDoc.

JSDoc 3 is free software, licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See the file LICENSE.md in this distribution for more details.