XML Documentation Comments Support for Visual Studio Code

Generate XML documentation comments for Visual Studio Code.

Deprecated Announcement

C# for Visual Studio Code (powered by OmniSharp) now officially supports the documentation comment from v1.23.8 (December 18th, 2020). You can use the official one by turning on Editor: Format On Type.

This extension will be deprecated in the future. Thanks to the users who have supported me so far. 2023/3/11 No features will be added, but only maintenance of the library will continue at the user's request.

Usage

Type "///", it auto-generates an XML documentation comment like this:

Configuration

The menu under File > Preferences (Code > Preferences on Mac) provides entries to configure user and workspace settings. You are provided with a list of Default Settings. Copy any setting that you want to change to the related settings.json file.

settings.json

{
	// single: Comments are single-line comments that start with three slashes (///) (Default)
	// delimited: Delimited comments that start with a slash and two stars (/**)
	"docomment.syntax": "single",
	// Press the Enter key to activate a command (Default: false)
	"docomment.activateOnEnter": false,
	// User-controllable options
	"docomment.advanced": {
		"cs": {
			"namespace" : {
				"attributes" : ["summary"]
			},
			"class" : {
				"attributes" : ["summary", "typeparam"]
			},
			"interface" : {
				"attributes" : ["summary", "typeparam"]
			},
			"struct" : {
				"attributes" : ["summary"]
			},
			"enum" : {
				"attributes" : ["summary"]
			},
			"delegate" : {
				"attributes" : ["summary", "param", "typeparam", "returns"]
			},
			"field" : {
				"attributes" : ["summary"]
			},
			"property" : {
				"attributes" : ["summary", "value"]
			},
			"method" : {
				"attributes" : ["summary", "param", "typeparam", "returns"]
			},
			"event" : {
				"attributes" : ["summary"]
			}
		}
	},
	// Insert spaces when pressing Tab.
	"editor.insertSpaces": true,
	// The number of spaces a tab is equal to.
	"editor.tabSize": 4
}

To enable publishing XML documentation:

project.csproj

  <PropertyGroup>
    <GenerateDocumentationFile>true</GenerateDocumentationFile>
    <DocumentationFile>bin\YourApi.XML</DocumentationFile>
    <NoWarn>$(NoWarn);1591</NoWarn>
  </PropertyGroup>

When DocumentationFile compiler option was specified, but one or more constructs did not have comments, it will produce CS1591 warning. You can optionally add a <NoWarn>$(NoWarn);1591</NoWarn> property to avoid these warnings.

  <PropertyGroup>
    <GenerateDocumentationFile>true</GenerateDocumentationFile>
    <DocumentationFile>bin\YourApi.XML</DocumentationFile>
    <NoWarn>$(NoWarn);1591</NoWarn>
  </PropertyGroup>

Installation

1. Install Visual Studio Code 1.76.0 or higher
2. Launch Code
3. From the extension view Ctrl-Shift-X (Windows, Linux) or Cmd-Shift-X (macOS)
4. Search and Choose the extension C# XML Documentation Comments
5. Reload Visual Studio Code

Supported Languages

• C#
• Blazor

Contributing to the Code

Clone a copy of the repo:

git clone https://github.com/kasecato/vscode-docomment.git

Building the code

First, install the package dependencies:

npm install

Now you can compile the code:

npm run compile

After the initial compile, the source files will be watched and recompiled when changes are saved.

Contributors

• @kasecato
• @ivanz
• @PJB3005
• @Acid147
• @doggy8088

License

This extension is licensed under the MIT License.