tinydoc-plugin-js

This plugin parses JSDoc3 annotated JavaScript source code files. The parser performs an AST-based analysis of the source files and it tries to infer what it can for you when you leave some parts blank (like function parameter names, property types and names, etc.)

Usage

npm install tinydoc tinydoc-plugin-js

In your tinydoc.conf.js:

exports.plugins = [
  require('tinydoc-plugin-js')({
    source: [ 'lib/**/*.js' ]
  })
];

Configuration

See lib/config.js.

Features: supported tags

• @module
• @namespace
• @type
• @property
• @param
• @return
• @throws
• @example
• @interface
• @memberOf
• @protected
• @private
• @alias
• @lends

TODO explain these tags.

Features: CommonJS support

Variant 1:

var SomeModule = {};
module.exports = SomeModule;

Variant 2:

var SomeModule = exports;

Variant 3:

module.exports = {
    someProperty: 'a',
    someFunction: function() {
    }
};

Variant 4:

module.exports = function someNamedFunction() {
};

Features: module identification

The parser (and UI) will classify modules into several categories based on how they look like (and how, consequently, their usage is expected to be like.)

Those categories are described below.

Object Modules

A plain object that has no custom prototype and may contain a number of functions and properties.

var SomeModule = {};

SomeModule.someStaticFunction = function() {
};

SomeModule.someStaticProperty = 'a';

Function Modules

Variant 1 - a function declaration expression:

function SomeModule() {}

Variant 2 - a function assigned to a variable:

var SomeModule = function() {}

Variant 3 - a function with static properties:

var SomeModule = function() {};

SomeModule.someStaticFunction = function() {};
SomeModule.someStaticProperty = 'a';

Prototypal Modules (or classes, really)

Any Object that writes something to its prototype is considered a "prototype" module and is expected to be instantiated using the new keyword.

function SomeModule() {
    this.someProperty = 'a';
}

SomeModule.prototype.someMethod = function() {};

// Static functions are supported too:
SomeModule.someStaticFunction = function() {};

// As well as static properties:
SomeModule.staticProp = 'a';

ES6 Classes

class SomeModule {
    static someStaticProperty = 5;
    static someStaticFunction() {
    }

    constructor() {
        this.someProperty = 'a';
    }

    someMethod() {
    }
}

Factory Modules

This is probably the trickiest of the types to classify (and probably the most common in JavaScript), but the parser tries to do its best.

The rule it tries to follow is:

A factory module is any function that returns an object or a function.

function createSomeModule() {
    return {
        someProperty: 'a',
        someMethod: function() {}
    };
}

Variant 2 - assigning to some exported object.

function createSomeModule() {
    let api = {};

    api.someProperty = 'a';
    api.someMethod = function() {}
    };

    return api;
}