Documentation for Java projects is created using Javadocs. Maven provides support not only to generate Javadocs, but also to publish them as part of the site. Plugins configured within the reporting element will generate content for the site. When they are configured within the build element, they can generate reports independent of site.
Use the following steps to generate Javadocs for a site:
- Open the Maven project
project-with-documentation. - Add the following section in the
pom.xmlfile:<reporting> <plugins> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.10.1</version> </plugin> </plugins> </reporting> - Run the following command:
mvn site - See the report generated:
- Click on the JavaDocs link:
We added the Javadoc plugin to the reporting section of pom. When the Site plugin runs, it examines this section and runs the reports configured there. In this case, it found javadoc and ran the relevant plugin to generate the Javadoc reports for the project.
Maven links the report from the site page in the Project Reports section.
What if we do not want to document the test classes, but only the source? We can configure the plugin to do this by performing the following steps:
- Add the following code to the
reportingsection where we set the value ofreportelement tojavadoc:<reportSets> <reportSet> <reports> <report>javadoc</report> </reports> </reportSet> </reportSets> - Run the following command:
mvn site - Open the resulting Site web page. Only the JavaDocs link is present on the site. The Test JavaDocs link is no longer present.