What Are Best Practices For Documenting C# code with XML comments?
I'm going through some new code I just wrote and adding NDoc sytle comments to my classes and methods. I'm hoping to generate a pretty good MSDN style document for reference.
In general, what are some good guidelines when writing comments for a class and for a method? What should the NDoc comments say? What should they not say?
I find myself looking at what the .NET framework comments say, but that gets old fast; if I could have some good rules to guide myself, I could finish my docs a lot faster.
Answer
In comments used to build API documentation, you should:
Explain what the method or property does, why it exists at all, and explain any domain concepts that are not self-evident to the average consumer of your code.
List all preconditions for your parameters (cannot be null, must be within a certain range, etc.)
List any postconditions that could influence how callers deal with return values.
List any exceptions the method may throw (and under what circumstances).
If similar methods exist, explain the differences between them.
Call attention to anything unexpected (such as modifying global state).
Enumerate any side-effects, if there are any.