How can I generate Javadoc comments in Eclipse?

For me the /**<NEWLINE> or Shift-Alt-J (or --J on a Mac) approach works best.

I dislike seeing Javadoc comments in source code that have been auto-generated and have not been updated with real content. As far as I am concerned, such javadocs are nothing more than a waste of screen space.

IMO, it is much much better to generate the Javadoc comment skeletons one by one as you are about to fill in the details.


Shift-Alt-J is a useful keyboard shortcut in Eclipse for creating Javadoc comment templates.

Invoking the shortcut on a class, method or field declaration will create a Javadoc template:

public int doAction(int i) {
    return i;
}

Pressing Shift-Alt-J on the method declaration gives:

/**
 * @param i
 * @return
 */
public int doAction(int i) {
    return i;
}

JAutoDoc:

an Eclipse Plugin for automatically adding Javadoc and file headers to your source code. It optionally generates initial comments from element name by using Velocity templates for Javadoc and file headers...