ASDoc compiling error in Flash Builder 4

Question

I can't seem to figure out why i continue getting this error every-time I try to compile ASDoc in Flash Builder 4.

I did succeed in ASDoc creating a asdoc-output folder but it is incomplete. There is only toplevel.xml and a tempdita folder that show up.

This is the error that shows up on my Console

Error at xsl:choose on line 46 of processHTML.xslt:
  java.io.FileNotFoundException:
  /Users/NEWYORK/abritez/Documents/workspaces/ate/ATE_Shell/asdoc-output/index.tmp (No such
  file or directory)
  at xsl:apply-templates (file:/Users/NEWYORK%5Cabritez/Documents/workspaces/ate/ATE_Shell/asdoc-output/tempdita/processHTML.xslt#25)
     processing /html
Transformation failed: Run-time errors were reported

Line 46 is in ProcessHTML.xslt is the initial <xsl:choose> in the element bellow.

<xsl:template match="html">
<xsl:copy-of select="$noLiveDocs"/>
<xsl:choose>
  <xsl:when test=".//frameset">
    <xsl:copy-of select="$frameDocType"/>
  </xsl:when>
  <xsl:otherwise>
    <xsl:copy-of select="$docType"/>
  </xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
<xsl:choose>
  <xsl:when test="$isLiveDocs"/>
  <xsl:otherwise>
    <xsl:value-of select="$markOfTheWeb"/>
  </xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
<xsl:element name="html">
  <xsl:apply-templates/>
  <xsl:copy-of select="$copyrightComment"/>
  <xsl:value-of select="$newline"/>
</xsl:element>
</xsl:template>

I went to External Tool Configuration and added the location of asdoc

/Applications/Adobe Flash Builder 4/sdks/flex_sdk_4.1/bin/asdoc

then i added my Working Directory

${workspace_loc:/ATE_Shell}

And lastly I inserted all my arguments

-lenient
-source-path src
-doc-sources src
-external-library-path=/Users/NEWYORK\abritez/Documents/workspaces/ate/ActivityToolkitLib/bin/ActivityToolkitLib.swc
-external-library-path=/Users/NEWYORK\abritez/Documents/workspaces/ate/ATE_Template/bin/ATE_Template.swc
-external-library-path=/Users/NEWYORK\abritez/Documents/workspaces/ate/AssesmentCommunicationLib/bin/AssesmentCommunicationLib.swc
-external-library-path=/Users/NEWYORK\abritez/Documents/workspaces/ate/BFW_UI/bin/BFW_UI.swc
-external-library-path=/Users/NEWYORK\abritez/Documents/workspaces/ate/DiagnosticReporter/bin/DiagnosticReporter.swc

UPDATE: I ended up rolling back to 3.5 and did a test application with only one method to document and got this error.

My method

package com.test
{
import mx.containers.Canvas;


public class Grouptest extends Canvas
{
    public function Grouptest()
    {
        super();
    }

    /**
     *  Hello
     * 
     * @param   value   Some string
     * */

    public function set testMe(value:String):void
    {
        trace("value " + value)
    }
}
} 

My Error

Loading configuration file /Applications/Adobe Flash Builder 4/sdks/3.5.0/frameworks/flex-config.xml Adobe ASDoc 
Version 3.5.0 build 12683 
Copyright (c) 2004-2007 Adobe Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. 

Error: '' is not a directory 
Use 'asdoc -help' for information about using the command line

Any help or point to the right direction would be greatly appriciated. I've gotten ASDoc running in the past so I am sure I must be overlooking something.

Answer 1

ASDoc is notoriously bad at reporting errors and giving red herrings.

The following was suitable for Flex 3. I assume that it is still appropriate for Flex 4.

Main thing to remember is that ASDoc only does one pass, unlike the compiler which does (at least) two. This exposes issues that the Compiler hides for you, classically if you declare something as bindable but don't make the class an IEventDispatcher, the compiler cheats for you on the first pass, but ASDoc will simply fail.

Another common issue is file not founds when using tags like @see. If you've named the path wrong, ASDoc used to fall over and not generate.

Third most common problem in my experience is malformed html tags. Forgetting to add the

or adding HTML tags into ASDoc tags which don't accept them.

Sadly, because ASDoc is SO bad at reporting these errors and doesn't gracefully handle mistakes, its a royal nightmare to find where the problem is without going over the code line by line...