How to generate links to the android Classes' reference in javadoc?

Question

When I generate javadoc for my Android project in Eclipse, there are lots of warnings like

cannot find symbol
symbol  : class TextView

and

Answer 1

Although I followed to top answer here, I found I could only get it to work if I exported an ant build file (javadoc.xml), and manually added the android.jar file to the classpath. My javadoc.xml looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<project default="javadoc">
    <target name="javadoc">
        <javadoc access="private" additionalparam=" -linkoffline http://developer.android.com/reference file:/opt/android-sdk-linux_x86/docs/reference" author="true" classpath=".:/opt/android-sdk-linux_x86/platforms/android-8/android.jar" destdir="doc" nodeprecated="false" nodeprecatedlist="false" noindex="false" nonavbar="false" notree="false" packagenames="com.example.mypackagename" source="1.5" sourcepath="gen:src" splitindex="true" use="true" version="true"/>
   </target>
</project>

I could then generate the document using ant -f javadoc.xml. I couldn't figure out a way to do it properly from the Eclipse GUI, as even selecting the correct referenced archive did not cause Eclipse to add android.jar to the classpath.

Answer 2

For those of us daring enough to have switched over to the ever-evolving Android Studio & Gradle, one of the things that actually works and makes things a little easier is referring to a package-list location either locally or on the web. For example, the following code from Julian generates javadoc files:

task("generate${variant.name.capitalize()}Javadoc", type: Javadoc) {
    title = "Documentation for Android $android.defaultConfig.versionName b$android.defaultConfig.versionCode"
    destinationDir = new File("${project.getProjectDir()}/doc/compiled/", variant.baseName)
    source = variant.javaCompile.source
    ext.androidJar = "${android.sdkDirectory}/platforms/${android.compileSdkVersion}/android.jar"
    classpath = files(variant.javaCompile.classpath.files) + files(ext.androidJar)

    description "Generates Javadoc for $variant.name."

    options.memberLevel = org.gradle.external.javadoc.JavadocMemberLevel.PRIVATE
    options.links("http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/");
    options.links("http://developer.android.com/reference/reference/");
    exclude '**/BuildConfig.java'
    exclude '**/R.java'
}

But this resulted in a warning during the build because the package-list isn't available anymore (if it ever was) at

options.links("http://developer.android.com/reference/reference/");

At first I thought maybe the redundant reference/reference was the issue, but the package-list was also unavailable at

options.links("http://developer.android.com/reference/");

So, after reading the discussion on this thread, that one line can be changed to refer to the local reference directory within the SDK:

options.links("c:\\path-to-sdk-directory\\docs\\reference");

It finds the package-list locally and doesn't display the warning message anymore.

Answer 3

Thanks @Henning

Here is what I needed in ant build.xml file:

<link offline="true" href="http://d.android.com/reference" packagelistLoc="${android.home}/docs/reference"/>

Answer 4

After a bit of trial and error (And plenty of suggestions gleaned from multiple web searches), I was able to get this working with a specific ANT script, which can be run in Eclipse by "Run As -> Ant Build".

I saved this file, "javadoc.xml", in the directory of my project, in parallel with the AndroidManifest.xml file.

Here is the content of the file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<project basedir="." default="doc" name="api docs">
<target name="doc" description="my docs">
<javadoc destdir="docs" doctitle="Testing the Title" verbose="on" 
    use="true" 
    classpath="C:\Android\android-sdk_r04-windows\android-sdk-windows\platforms\android-2.1\android.jar;.\libs\admob-sdk-android.jar"
    sourcepath="gen;src"
    linkoffline="http://d.android.com/reference C:\Android\android-sdk_r04-windows\android-sdk-windows\docs\reference"
    stylesheetfile="C:\Android\android-sdk_r04-windows\android-sdk-windows\docs\assets\android-developer-docs.css"
    >
</javadoc>
</target>
</project>

Answer 5

If you have problems with the path to the SDK you can manually create a package-list file (or copy the one under $ANDROID_HOME/docs/reference/package-list) to your project.

To use a relative path you shouldn't use the file:/ prefix. If you put the file in sub-directory/package-list the argument would be -linkoffline http://d.android.com/reference sub-directory

Answer 6

By now (August 2020), Google has published a package-list on its Android developer documentation. Hence, simply linking to https://developer.android.com/reference/ or https://d.android.com/reference/ will work (just tried this with success).

Minor glitch: if you open the generated Javadoc and try to follow a link to an Android class (or one of the standard Java classes, which will also link to the Android documentation) and you are in frame mode, your browser might refuse to follow the link, as the Android site does not allow embedding in another page. Firefox then gives you the alternative of opening the target document in a new tab.