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DevelopmentOpen SourceDocumentation

What are the best open-source documentation generators for C/C++?

8

Options
Considered

61

User
Recs.

Nov 2, 2023

Last
Updated

6 Options Considered

Best open-source documentation generators for C/C++	Price	Platforms	Output Format
-- Doxygen	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac OSX	HTML, RTF (MS-Word), PostScript, hyperlinked PDF, compressed HTML, and Unix man pages
-- Sphinx	Free	-	-
-- Natural Docs	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac	HTML
-- Eclipse with JSDT	$0	-	-
-- GtkDoc	-	-	-

Doxygen

Top Pro

Free

Top Con

i18n support is poor

Cannot work properly with non-ascii paths on Windows See More

RickZeeland's Experience

Doxygen is the de facto standard tool for generating documentation from annotated C++ and other languages like C#, Java, Python, PHP etc. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac OSX

Output Format:HTML, RTF (MS-Word), PostScript, hyperlinked PDF, compressed HTML, and Unix man pages

Python version compatibility:2 and 3

Top Pro

Generates documentation from comments

Doxygen can generate documentation from formatted comments in the source code. This is extremely useful when writing detailed man pages. See More

Top Con

PDF output is very problematic

Doxygen PDF output relies on the now broken LaTeX tabu package which was abandoned over a decade ago by its developer. See More

ProductiveZipacna's Experience

I tried using Doxygen to create the documentation for a C++ project. It did OK with the HTML, but utterly failed with the PDF output. I know the error lies in a LaTeX dependency and is not specific to Doxygen. However, since that dependency was abandoned by its creator over a decade ago, yet Doxygen still relies on it is a failure. Additionally, Doxygen's own documentation is difficult to use and lacks a lot of concrete examples. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Doxygen is compatible with multiple languages. Including but not limited to: C, Objective-C, C#, C++, Java, Python, PHP etc... See More

Top Con

No recursive inclusion

For example, if you specify INCLUDE_PATH=incl, it doesn't search other folders included in the incl folder (incl/sub1 or incl/sub2) and there's no option to turn on recursive inclusion. See More

Sphinx

RickZeeland's Experience

Sphinx was created for generating Python documentation, but now supports C++ as well. See More

Specs

Multi Language Support:Yes

Language:Python

Markup Languages:reStructuredText

Eclipse with JSDT

GtkDoc

Top Pro

Nice look

It has a clean appearance. See More

C++

Eclipse with JSDT

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