Writing JavaDocs for an External Library

Question

In my situation, there is an external compiled library (jar) from a third party without JavaDocs. As development progresses, I want to document classes and methods by testing and using the very limited documentation that I get from a third-party website.

My ultimate goal is to have JavaDoc documentation that I can use in IntelliJ to find code and find documentation?

So my question is: is it possible to write JavaDocs to an already compiled jar file that I can import? Perhaps using a tool that helps this.

Answer 1

Yes it is. All you have to do is write the class, interface and definitions of methods and variables without any code, as if all methods were abstract, and then write Javadoc comments for them. This is actually how Sun created Javadoc, through a completely separate source tree controlled by technical editors and editors (hi Doug!), With a merge process at the end of the build process to free the source code.