How to write C++ comments that show up in Intellisense? - c++

Question

I'm programming in C++ using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. I want to document some functions and I want the documentation to show up in Intellisense.
According to MSDN, I just need to put the comment before the declaration or after it on the same line. So I tried this:
// This is a test.
void foo();
void bar() { foo(); }
When moving my mouse over foo(), the comment doesn't appear in the tooltip. I also tried:
///
<summary></summary> tags
Building with /doc (by setting the "Generate XML documentation files" option in the project settings)
I've had no luck so far. Does anyone know a way to make this work?

Answer 1

This now supported in VS 2012!
Previously, XML tags in the comments were only read in by C++/CLI, not plain old C++.
VS 2012 now brings at least some of this into regular C++ - it is in the What's New in Visual Studio 2012 and in the MSDN docs: XML Documentation (Visual C++).
I've tested it with my own application in 2012 ultimate, and I can confirm that the summary, para, and seealso tags are all pulled out an formatted for tooltips.

Answer 2

I'm not sure which version of Visual Studio introduced that but in VS 2015 you can simply put comment above a function, method, class, struct, union, enum class, namespace or even individual variables (locals too) and it will be shown by Intellisense. If you want to document something from a different module, you have to write a comment in the header file. Examples:

Answer 3

Try installing Visual Assist and using doxygen style:
/**
* COMMENT DESCRIBING A CLASS
**/
class Foo
{
public:
/**
* \brief A foo method.
*
* More complete description of foo.
*
* \param i A foo parameter.
* \return An int
*
**/
int fooMethod(int i);
private:
int i; /*!< COMENT OF A MEMBER */
};

Answer 4

I haven't used VS2010 is too many years to remember whether this worked there or not. But what I have done for years in many different version of VS is ...:
#pragma region foo(float)
/// <summary> .... </summary>
/// <param name="bar"> .... </param>
/// <returns> .... </returns>
int foo(float bar)
{
// stuff
}
#pragma endregion
In other words, manually putting in exactly what Visual Studio will automagically put in for C# code for you.
Then give the Intellisense engine a minute or so to reparse the file. Doing a build will force it to reparse, of course.
As I recall, this works in the most recent VS2010 Express Community, but I don't recall whether it worked in VS2010 Ultimate.

Answer 5

Old question but without accepted answer, so maybe this will help:
Currently in Visual Studio 2019 you can manually write xml documentation that is displayed in the IntelliSense using supported tags from:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/programming-guide/xmldoc/recommended-tags-for-documentation-comments
Support for autogenerated xml documentation after typing "///" is coming in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.6 that is currently in the PreRelease state. Check for details: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releases/2019/release-notes-preview