Maven javadoc plugin - how can I include only certain classes?

Question

Using the Maven javadoc plugin you can exclude certain packages - but I have lots of packages and only a handful of classes I want to produce Javadoc for.

Is there a way to include rather than exclude?

I would also like to do things on a class level rather than a package level as I have some classes in a package which need javadoc and some which don't.

Answer 1

Since maven-javadoc-plugin version 2.9, you can do this in your configuration:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.9</version>
  <configuration>
    ....
    <sourceFileIncludes>
      <include>Foo.java</include>
      <include>Bar.java</include>
    </sourceFileIncludes>
    <sourcepath>${basedir}/src/main/java/path/to/foo-and-bar</sourcepath>
    ....
  </configuration>
  ....

... which would build a Javadoc site only including the mentioned classes.

Answer 2

Using the maven-javadoc-plugin, you cannot specify specific java classess (though you can with the javadoc utility, see below). However, via the the sourcepath configuration option for the javadoc:javadoc goal, you can configure specific packages. An example of this follows:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.5</version>
    <configuration>
        <charset>UTF-8</charset>
        <docencoding>UTF-8</docencoding>
        <docfilessubdirs>true</docfilessubdirs>
        <links>
            <link>http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/</link>
        </links>
        <show>protected</show>
        <source>1.5</source>
        <sourcepath>${basedir}/src/main/java/com/acme/foo</sourcepath>
    </configuration>
    <reportSets>
        <reportSet>
            <reports>
                <report>javadoc</report>
            </reports>
        </reportSet>
    </reportSets>
</plugin>

In this example, all classes under the com.acme.foo package (including subpackages) will have javadoc generated.

It should be noted that this Maven plugin is simply a wrapper around Sun's javadoc utility. As such, most of the documentation and configuration for javadoc holds true for this plugin. See Sun's documentation on the javadoc sourcepath parameter.

In an area where the maven-javadoc-plugin differs in functionality, Sun's documentation for the sourcepath parameter mentions that it is possible with the javadoc utility to generate javadoc for specific classes. This capability is not available with the maven-javadoc-plugin. An example of this is shown in Sun's documentation:

  C:> cd C:\home\src\java\awt
  C:> javadoc -d C:\home\html Button.java Canvas.java Graphics*.java