Docs for Xcode Install extra documentation into Xcode with ease Since version 5, Xcode no longer supports 3rd party docsets. It can display them, but you cannot add new docsets from within Xcode and it won’t update them. Documentation for the missing package manager for macOS. The documentation site is built using Docusaurus 2 using Yarn and Node.js. Contributing Content. Always cut branches from master branch. See the Contribution Guide to learn about writing and submitting content, our GitHub labels, and more. A template file (/docs/template.md) is included in the repo to understand markdown formatting and options.
The ability to quickly access documentation is a major feature of Xcode, and one you’ll want to use regularly for your iOS app project. If you have no idea how to do something, or how something works, you can often find the answer in the documentation. Being able to figure out what’s going on will. Remoting SDK does not directly integrate with Xcode, for lack of a stable and public API in Xcode for third party integrations. But the tools that come with Remoting SDK for Cocoa, in particular Service Importer, make it really easy to work with Remoting SDK Servers from your Xcode client projects – be it for iOS, Mac, tvOS or even watchOS, and with both Swift and Objective-C.
Code structure and organization is a matter of pride for developers. Clear and consistent code signifies clear and consistent thought. Even though the compiler lacks a discerning palate when it comes to naming, whitespace, or documentation, it makes all the difference for human collaborators.
This week, we’ll be documenting the here and now of documentation in Swift.
Since the early ’00s, Headerdoc has been Apple’s preferred documentation standard. Starting off as little more than a Perl script that parsed trumped-up Javadoc comments, Headerdoc would eventually be the engine behind Apple’s developer documentation online and in Xcode.
But like so much of the Apple developer ecosystem, Swift changed everything. In the spirit of “Out with the old, in with the new”, Xcode 7 traded Headerdoc for fan favorite Markdown — specifically, Swift-flavored Markdown.
Documentation Comments & Swift-Flavored Markdown
Even if you’ve never written a line of Markdown before, you can get up to speed in just a few minutes. Here’s pretty much everything you need to know:
Basic Markup
Documentation comments look like normal comments, but with a little something extra. Single-line documentation comments have three slashes (///). Multi-line documentation comments have an extra star in their opening delimiter (/** ... */).
Standard Markdown rules apply inside documentation comments:
- Paragraphs are separated by blank lines.
- Unordered lists are marked by bullet characters (
-,+,*, or•). - Ordered lists use numerals (1, 2, 3, …) followed by either a period (
1.) or a right parenthesis (1)). - Headers are preceded by
#signs or underlined with=or-. - Both links and images work, with web-based images pulled down and displayed directly in Xcode.
Summary & Description
The leading paragraph of a documentation comment becomes the documentation Summary. Any additional content is grouped together into the Discussion section.
If a documentation comment starts with anything other than a paragraph, all of its content is put into the Discussion.
Parameters & Return Values
Xcode recognizes a few special fields and makes them separate from a symbol’s description. The parameters, return value, and throws sections are broken out in the Quick Help popover and inspector when styled as a bulleted item followed by a colon (:).
- Parameters: Start the line with
Parameter <param name>:and the description of the parameter. - Return values: Start the line with
Returns:and information about the return value. - Thrown errors: Start the line with
Throws:and a description of the errors that can be thrown. Since Swift doesn’t type-check thrown errors beyondErrorconformance, it’s especially important to document errors properly.
Are you documenting a function whose method signature has more arguments than a Hacker News thread about tabs vs. spaces? Break out your parameters into a bulleted list underneath a Parameters: callout:
Additional Fields
In addition to Parameters, Throws and Returns, Swift-flavored Markdown defines a handful of other fields, which can be loosely organized in the following way:
- Algorithm/Safety Information
PreconditionPostconditionRequiresInvariantComplexityImportantWarning- Metadata
AuthorAuthorsCopyrightDateSeeAlsoSinceVersion- General Notes & Exhortations
AttentionBugExperimentNoteRemarkToDo
Each of these fields is rendered in Quick Help as a bold header followed by a block of text:
Field Header:
The text of the subfield is displayed starting on the next line.
Code blocks
Docs For Xcode Download
Demonstrate the proper usage or implementation details of a function by embedding code blocks. Inset code blocks by at least four spaces:
Fenced code blocks are also recognized, delimited by either three backticks (`) or tildes (~):
Documentation Is My New Bicycle
How does this look when applied to an entire class? Quite nice, actually!
Option-click on the initializer declaration, and the description renders beautifully with a bulleted list:
Open Quick Documentation for the method travel, and the parameter is parsed out into a separate field, as expected:
MARK / TODO / FIXME
In Objective-C, the preprocessor directive #pragma mark is used to divide functionality into meaningful, easy-to-navigate sections. In Swift, the same can be accomplished with the comment // MARK:.
The following comments are surfaced in the Xcode source navigator:
// MARK:// TODO:// FIXME:
Other conventional comment tags, such as NOTE and XXX aren’t recognized by Xcode.
As with #pragma, marks followed by a single dash (-) are preceded with a horizontal divider
To show these new tags in action, here’s how the Bicycle class could be extended to adopt the CustomStringConvertible protocol, and implement the description property.
Bringing everything together in code:
At the time of writing, there’s no official tool for transforming documentation comments into something more tangible than Quick Help panels in Xcode,
Fortunately, where necessity arises, open source (often) delivers.
Jazzy
Jazzy is a terrific open-source command-line utility that transforms your project’s documentation comments into a set of Apple-like HTML documentation (but that nice vintage style, before that whole redesign). Jazzy uses Xcode’s SourceKitService to read your beautifully written type and method descriptions.
Install Jazzy as a gem, then run from the root of your project folder to generate documentation.
Take a peek at a Jazzy-generated documentation for the Bicycle class.
Although the tooling and documentation around Swift is still developing, one would be wise to adopt good habits early, by using the new Markdown capabilities for documentation, as well as MARK: comments in Swift code going forward.
Apple App Developer
Go ahead and add it to your TODO: list.