In Objective-C what utility uses @brief tag in comments?

Question

I just started programming in Objective-C and found some example comments like the following:

/*!
@brief The UIImageView we use to display the image generated from the imageBuffer
*/

What is the purpose of @brief? Is this something related to a documentation system like Doxygen?

Answer 1

Yes. That is the standard format for a function description in doxygen, using the command @brief for a brief explanation.

Maybe you are more familiar with the expression \brief, but @brief is allowed too. You have all the variations explained in this section of the manual.

Putting the command @brief will generate a short description of the function when you generate the doxygen documentation. That short description can be extended if you want.

Answer 2

Also this tag enable you to display your comments in Quick Help in Xcode.

Almost full pattern is:

/**
 @brief Example usage:
 @code
 @endcode
 @param param
 */

Answer 3

Yes, this is a doxygen tag indeed.