In the November edition of MSDN Magazine, Peter Gruenbaum explains how to write good reference documentation for APIs in his article titled “A Coder’s Guide to Writing API Documentation”.
My attention was particularly drawn to Figures 2 and 3, which explain how to comment while maintaining consistency throughout the API. I have reproduced them here:
Figure 2: Reference Documentation Style
| Type | Guideline | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Class | Start with a word like “Represents” | “Represents a user’s photo album.” |
| Methods and functions | Start with a verb | “Returns the number of contacts for the specified area.” “Pauses the video.” |
| Properties | Use a noun or start with verbs such as “Gets” or “Gets and sets” | “The user’s tasks.” “Gets and sets a collection of the user’s tasks.” |
| Events | Start with a phrase such as “Raised when” or “Occurs when” | “Raised when the response from server is received.” |
| XML elements | Use a noun-based phrase | “The city’s postal code.” |
| Boolean values | For Boolean properties, start with “Indicates whether”; for Boolean return values on methods and functions, start with “Returns whether” | “Indicates whether the control is visible.” “Returns whether two regions intersect.” |
Figure 3: Reference Documentation Example
| Class or Member | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Class description | Class | Represents a Windows button control. |
| Button constructor | Constructor | Initializes a new instance of the Button class. |
| Focus | Method | Sets input focus to the control. |
| Visible | Property | Gets or sets a value indicating whether the control and all its child controls are displayed. |
| Click | Event | Occurs when the control is clicked. |
And this does not only apply to APIs! Do you have standards like this?