Doc++ Experiences?

bridgette asks: "I'd like to have a good 'javadocs-like' documentation generator for my C/C++ project. I've been looking into Doc++ but I haven't seen any 3rd party reviews. Anyone out there want to share their experiences with Doc++, good bad or otherwise? Anyone know of any alternatives?"

Brief comments

[GTD]

I used doc++ for a small C (not ++!) library recently. It really needed equation support in both printed and HTML docs. Doc++ was the only system I found to provide this.

Overall I was happy with it. My tips would be:
- subscribe to the developers list even as a non-developer. Bugs are introduced, and fixed, on a frequent basis.
- automake targets for this kind of thing are still mildly tricky. That's not doc++'s fault.
- the TeX layout looks pretty good, but tinkering with it requires at least a lesser TeX wizard.
- the code uses multiple state machines written using flex and C++. Check it out, it's pretty funky.

Doxygen

[Tim]

I looked around for a similar thing for my own project, and Doxygen [stack.nl] was the best I found. Very full featured, and it can generate HTML, PDF, PS, LaTeX, even XML (sort of) from the same comments. I highly recommend it.

scandoc

[XPulga]

I started with doc++ for my projects but later switched to scandoc [sourceforge.net].

The main con about doc++ (IMHO) is the lack of configurability of the output look and feel.

While scandoc will generate only HTML output (and you should look for other tools if LaTeX, TXT, Groff, your-format-here output is desired), it is very configurable, requiring some Perl hacking to get the template to generate what you want.

Here is an example of scandoc-generated documentation [sourceforge.net].

Very nice

[cdh]

I used it for a decent sized project (50kloc of C++ code, multiple libraries, etc.) and it worked great. I was looking for good looking printed documentation and therefore wanted LaTeX. I was extremely happy with it and was able to configure the output enough that it made my client happy. The HTML output is very good too. The system is very easy to use and produces great output. Highly recommended.

DOC++

[AT]

I've used Doc++ for a C/C++ project and was very impressed. Anyone who has used javadoc will be able to use this instantly; the doc++ commenting standard is a superset of javadoc. In addition, the speed is about an order of magnitude faster than javadoc.

Only a couple problems:

• I had a few issues with Latex/TeX layout, but the html output is great
  
• it is a pain to comment structs in C, because it forces you to define the struct without a typedef
  

I'd almost say its a better javadoc than javadoc, but I really like the doclet idea, even though it hasn't been fully exploited yet.

Re:Doxygen

[Jason Pollock]

I looked at both DOC++ and Doxygen, and went with Doxygen. The benefit of not having to use Java to browse the class heirarchy, plus support for legacy C code, was a major plus for me.