How to quote "*/" in JavaDocs

java comments javadoc

11,029

Solution 1

Use HTML escaping.

So in your example:

/**
 * Returns true if the specified string contains "*&#47;".
 */
public boolean containsSpecialSequence(String str)

/ escapes as a "/" character.

Javadoc should insert the escaped sequence unmolested into the HTML it generates, and that should render as "*/" in your browser.

If you want to be very careful, you could escape both characters: */ translates to */

Edit:

Follow up: It appears I can use / for the slash. The only downside is that this isn't all that readable when view the code directly.

So? The point isn't for your code to be readable, the point is for your code documentation to be readable. Most Javadoc comments embed complex HTML for explaination. Hell, C#'s equivalent offers a complete XML tag library. I've seen some pretty intricate structures in there, let me tell you.

Edit 2: If it bothers you too much, you might embed a non-javadoc inline comment that explains the encoding:

/**
 * Returns true if the specified string contains "*&#47;".
 */
// returns true if the specified string contains "*/"
public boolean containsSpecialSequence(String str)

Solution 2

Nobody mentioned {@literal}. This is another way to go:

/**
 * Returns true if the specified string contains "*{@literal /}".
 */

Unfortunately you cannot escape */ at a time. With some drawbacks, this also fixes:

The only downside is that this isn't all that readable when viewing the code directly in a text editor.

Solution 3

/**
 * Returns true if the specified string contains "*&#47;".
 */

This is the ‘right’ solution, but for readability's sake I'd probably go for:

/**
 * Returns true if the string contains an asterisk followed by slash.
 */

Solution 4

Use the entity

*&#47;

In your documentation it will show up as a "*/"

Solution 5

Another way I stumbled upon, just for completeness: add some HTML markup which doesn't alter the output between the * and /.

  /**
   * *<b/>/
   */

Compared to the HTML escape solution, this seems something of an ugly hack, but it also yields the right result in HTML output.

View more solutions

11,029

Author by

Steve Kuo

Software, pilot, travel, life http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevekuo1

Updated on June 06, 2022

Comments

Steve Kuo almost 2 years
I have a need to include */ in my JavaDoc comment. The problem is that this is also the same sequence for closing a comment. What the proper way to quote/escape this?

Example:
```
/**
 * Returns true if the specified string contains "*/".
 */
public boolean containsSpecialSequence(String str)
```
Follow up: It appears I can use / for the slash. The only downside is that this isn't all that readable when viewing the code directly in a text editor.
```
/**
 * Returns true if the specified string contains "*&#47;".
 */
```
Brett about 15 years

I'd have gone for the B.
Tim Frey about 15 years

Does this bother anyone else except for me? Now it looks good in the javadoc but it's unreadable when you're just looking at the source code...
Randolpho about 15 years

It's not entirely unreadable. You're a programmer, right? You should at least be able to realize that it's an HTML escape code, even if you don't recognize the actual value. You can always look it up. As I said before, the point of javadoc is readability of documentation, not code.
Randolpho about 15 years

That said, you could always embed a comment that's not Javadoc to explain it to yourself elsewhere in your code. Something like: // searches for "*/"
Stephen about 15 years

Just open the javadoc view in your IDE. They tend to be pretty awesome these days...
Randolpho about 15 years

Not quite; your suggestion as it currently stands would likely violate html doctypes. If somebody were to go this route, I would suggest something like: */ to make sure the tags are closed.
Jonik about 15 years

Ah, I was wondering about that, but left it like that because it's the shortest option and worked fine in IDEA (Ctrl-Q). If not , wouldn't */ or */ suffice?
Brett Ryan almost 8 years

One note that may be mentioned is that this will not get escaped in {@code } blocks and if a code or pre-formatted output is desired that it must exist within a <code></code> block instead.
Jason S over 4 years

well, ok, but that advice isn't very useful when giving examples of shell glob patterns e.g. foo/bar/**/baz.zip