Natural Docs

Natural Docs

Original author(s)	Greg Valure
Stable release	1.5 / July 22, 2010
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	Documentation generator
License	Affero General Public License
Website	NaturalDocs.org

Natural Docs is a multi-language documentation generator. It is written in Perl and is available as free software under the terms of the Affero General Public License. It attempts to keep the comments written in source code just as readable as the generated documentation. It is written and maintained by Greg Valure.

Background

Theoretically, Natural Docs can generate documentation from any language that can support comments, or from plain text files. When executed, it can automatically document functions, variables, classes, and inheritance from ActionScript, C#, and Perl regardless of existing documentation in the source code. In all other languages, these need to be explicitly documented for them to be generated. It can generate documentation in HTML, either with frames or without.

Unlike Javadoc, it is not considered an industry standard for documenting in any language, although it can incorporate Javadoc documentation for languages with "full support."^[1] It is used by some hobbyists and companies, such as CNET Networks, Inc. and Iron Realms Entertainment.^[2][3] It has gained popularity amongst ActionScript developers because no other free documentation generator exists that fully supports ActionScript and because it generates higher-quality output than similar generators that partially support the language, such as ROBODoc.

Example

This is an example of the documentation style:

/*
 * Function: Multiply
 * 
 * Multiplies two integers.
 *
 * Parameters:
 *    x - The first integer.
 *    y - The second integer.
 *
 * Returns:
 *    The two integers multiplied together.
 *
 * See Also:
 *    <Divide>
 */

int Multiply (int x, int y)
   {  return x * y;  };

For comparison, this is how the same thing would be documented with Javadoc:

/**         
 * Multiplies two integers.      
 *       
 * @param x The first integer.   
 * @param y The second integer.          
 * @return The two integers multiplied together.         
 * @see Divide   
 */      

int Multiply (int x, int y)      
   { return x * y; };

See also

• Comparison of documentation generators

Notes and references

1. ^ Language support on NaturalDocs.org
2. ^ CNET's Global Framework by CNET Networks, Inc. and generated documentation using Natural Docs
3. ^ Rapture by Iron Realms Entertainment and generated documentation using Natural Docs

Further reading

• Natural Docs Home Page
• List of features
• List of supported languages