YARD Documenter

Extension generates YARD documentation comments for Ruby source code.

See Readme for more information on this tool.

Features

Extension automatically prepends definitions of methods, classes etc with documentation snippets. No need to remember a formatting tags and styling, just type and describe your code.

It's able to document:

• Methods: instance methods, initializers, class methods.
• Classes and Modules.
• Constants.
• Attributes accessors (attr_reader, attr_writer, attr_accessor and more).

Methods named in ASCII and Japanese are supported.

Usage

Position cursor on a definition you wish to document.

def foo(bar, baz = false) # <- put cursor at any place of this line
end

Hit Ctrl+Alt+Enter (Option+Command+Enter on macOS) or invoke Document with YARD from the command palette.

  #
  # <Description>
  #
  # @param [<Type>] bar <description>
  # @param [<Type>] baz <description>
  #
  # @return [<Type>] <description>
  #
  def foo(bar, baz = false)
  end

Documentation snippet appears on top of the method.

Use Tab and Shift+Tab keys to navigate and fill in placeholders.

  #
  # An example instance method description.
  #
  # @param [Integer] bar first param used for demonstration
  # @param [Boolean] baz second param with a default value
  #
  # @return [nil] nothing returned so it's always nil
  #
  def foo(bar, baz = false)
  end

Done!

Another snippets examples, default spacers setup:

#
# Class to retry and fail.
#
# @author Author Name <author@example.com>
#
class Foo
  # @return [Integer] count of retries performed before failing
  RETRIES_COUNT=3

  # @return [Boolean] retry operation result
  attr_accessor :succeed

  #
  # Retry something.
  #
  # @return [Boolean] processing result, true if succeed
  #
  def retry
    RETRIES_COUNT.times { puts 'Retrying...' }
    @succeed = false
  end
end

Minimal setup:

# Class to retry and fail.
class Foo
  # @return [Integer] count of retries performed before failing
  RETRIES_COUNT=3

  # @return [Boolean] retry operation result
  attr_accessor :succeed

  # Retry something.
  # @return [Boolean] processing result, true if succeed
  def retry
    RETRIES_COUNT.times { puts 'Retrying...' }
    @succeed = false
  end
end

Feel free to append any needed tags like @note, @example, @see manually after snippet filled in.

Details

List of generated tags: @author, @option, @param, @return.

Configuration

Insertion of empty lines are configurable to make it able to tune between a curt and verbose documentation styles.

"yard.spacers.beforeDescription" // Prepend an empty line to descriptive texts
"yard.spacers.afterDescription" // Append an empty line to descriptive texts
"yard.spacers.beforeTags" // Prepend an empty line to all method's tags
"yard.spacers.separateTags" // Separate method's tags of the same name (@params and @return) with an empty line
"yard.spacers.afterTags" // Append an empty line to all method's tags
"yard.spacers.beforeSingleTag" // Prepend an empty line to directives or single tags (for example constants)
"yard.spacers.afterSingleTag" // Append an empty line to directives or single tags (for example constants)
"yard.tags.author" // Append @author tag to Class and Module documentation
"yard.tags.paramNameBeforeType" // Print param name before its type (for example '@param username [String]')

TODO

• Ability to document blocks: @yield, @yieldparam, @yieldreturn.
• Support for non-empty options hash parameters.
• Resolve @author information from environment or settings.
• (killer feature 🔥) Ability to update existing documentation.
• (maybe) Editor snippets for tags (@option, @param etc) or tags autocompletion
• (maybe) A better support for array / keyword args splats, see comment.

Troubleshooting

If hotkey isn't working open VS Code Keyboard Shortcuts and check for keybinging conflicts.

This also may happen if destination is already documented. In this case extension silently does nothing.