Is there a standard (like phpdoc or python's docstring) for commenting C# code?

Question

Is there a standard convention (like phpdoc or python\'s docstring) for commenting C# code so that class documentation can be automatically generated from the source code?

Answer 1

You can use XML style comments, and use tools to pull those comments out into API documentation.

Here is an example of the comment style:

/// 

/// Authenticates a user based on a username and password.
/// 
/// The username.
/// The password.
/// 
/// True, if authentication is successful, otherwise False.
/// 
/// 
/// For use with local systems
/// 
public override bool Authenticate(string username, string password)

Some items to facilitate this are:

GhostDoc, which give a single shortcut key to automatically generate comments for a class or method. Sandcastle, which generates MSDN style documentation from XML comments.