Doxygen is a powerful tool for generating documentation from source code. It automatically extracts comments from your code and produces HTML, PDF, and other formats.

  1. Check Language Support: First, ensure that Doxygen supports your programming language. By default, it recognizes languages like C, C++, Lex, C#, Objective-C, IDL, Java, PHP, Python, Fortran, and D.

  2. Create a Configuration File:

    • Each project should have its own configuration file. You can create one manually or let Doxygen generate a template for you. To create a template, run: 
      doxygen -g <config-file>
      Replace <config-file> with the desired name (e.g., Doxyfile).
    • Edit the configuration file to customize settings such as project name, output directory, and other options.

  3. Document Your Code:

    • Use special comments in your source code to provide documentation. Doxygen recognizes different formats, including:
      • /** ... */ comments
      • /// comments (with an extra slash)
    • Annotate classes, functions, parameters, return values, and other entities using Doxygen commands and markdown syntax.

  4. Run Doxygen:

    • Execute Doxygen with the configuration file as an argument: 
      doxygen <config-file>
    • Depending on your settings, Doxygen will create directories (e.g., html, latex, xml) containing the generated documentation.

  5. View the Documentation:

    • Open the generated index.html file (in the html directory) to explore the HTML documentation.

Remember to keep your code comments informative and consistent. Doxygen will transform them into well-organized documentation for your project!

For more detailed usage information, refer to the official Doxygen documentation.