How can you document code using programming standards and conventions?

2 What to document?

Documenting code does not require a comprehensive essay for every line of code; rather, it involves providing the necessary information to make the code understandable and useful for its intended audience and context. This can include details such as the name, author, date, version, and license of the code file or project. It is also important to document the dependencies, inputs, outputs, parameters, assumptions, preconditions, postconditions, exceptions, usage, examples, references, changes, updates and bugs of the code history or revisions.

3 How to document?

Documenting code can vary depending on the programming language, environment, and tools you use. However, there are some general principles and best practices that should be followed. For instance, you should use consistent and meaningful naming conventions for your variables, functions, classes, and files. Comments should explain the why and how of your code rather than the what. Docstrings or documentation comments should be used to describe the functionality and usage of your code modules or functions. Moreover, inline comments should be used to clarify complex or tricky code snippets or logic. Lastly, external documentation tools or platforms should be used to generate, format, and host your code documentation.

4 What are docstrings?

Docstrings are special comments that document the functionality and usage of your code modules or functions. They are usually placed at the beginning of the module or function definition, and they follow a specific syntax and style depending on the programming language and documentation tool you use. For example, in Python, you can use triple quotes to write a docstring for a function, like this:

def add(a, b):
    """Return the sum of two numbers.
    Args:
        a (int): The first number to add.
        b (int): The second number to add.
    Returns:
        int: The sum of a and b.
    """
    return a + b        

5 What are documentation tools?

Documentation tools are software applications or libraries that help you generate, format, and host your code documentation. Doxygen, Sphinx, Javadoc, and RDoc are some popular documentation tools; they can parse your code and docstrings to create HTML, PDF, or other types of documents that are easy to read and navigate. Doxygen is a cross-platform tool that supports multiple programming languages and formats such as C++, Java, Python, HTML, LaTeX, and more. Sphinx is a Python-based tool that can document Python code and other languages; it also integrates with other tools like reStructuredText, Markdown, Read the Docs, and more. Javadoc is a tool that documents Java code and produces HTML files viewable in a web browser or an IDE. RDoc is a tool that documents Ruby code and generates HTML, XML, or ri files accessible by the Ruby interpreter or other tools.