How to generate automatically a JavaDoc on a web page

Question

I am currently working on a Java project in GitHub and I need on every update to manually generate JavaDoc and upload it on GitHub Page. But it's very tedious.

And I wondering if is possible to automatise this with a CI?

Answer 1

Generate automatically a JavaDoc to a web page with GitHub Page

Yes is possible, with this code on your GitHub Actions :

name: Deploy Javadoc

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master
      - main

jobs:
  publish:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Deploy JavaDoc 🚀
        uses: MathieuSoysal/Javadoc-publisher.yml@v2.0.4
        with:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          javadoc-branch: javadoc
          java-version: 17
          target-folder: javadoc 

Credit: https://github.com/MathieuSoysal/Javadoc-publisher.yml https://github.com/marketplace/actions/deploy-javadoc

This code publishes JavaDoc automatically when you publish your code to "master" branch, your JavaDoc is pushed on javadoc branch, and deployed with GitHub Page.

don't forget to enable GitHub page on your GitHub repo settings

---

Create a GitHub Actions inside your GitHub repository

To create a GitHub Actions you need to simply add this yaml file on /.github/workflows/<your-file>.yaml inside your GitHub repository.

Answer 2

Sorry, I may have missed the focus of the question …

But for my understanding, a CI process chain generates artefacts automatically from source files provided to it, usually by a repository.

The process chain triggers all kinds of programs to generate these artefacts, like compilers, linkers, and other stuff.

So where is the problem to invoke the javadoc tool as part of the CI chain?

Both Gradle and Maven have plugins for JavaDoc, and even ant has commands to start JavaDoc.

Even for the alternative Doxygen tool do exist means to integrate that into Gradle and Maven …

And at worst case, how big a difficulty is it to launch the javadoc tool from a batch file?