How to create multiple levels of indentation in Javadoc?

Question

Suppose, that as part of documenting your code (Javadoc) you want to indicate that the relationships between elements using deep indentation.

How can I create a nested

Answer 1

The nested list should be within its own <li>. <ul> is not a valid child element of <ul>.

So your example would be:

<ul>
  <li>some element</li>
  <li>
    <ul>
      <li>some other element</li>
      <li>
        <ul>
          <li>yet some other element</li>
        </ul>
      </li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>

Answer 2

The correct way is as follows:

/**
 * <ul>
 *   <li>some element
 *   <li><ul>
 *     <li>some other element
 *     <li><ul>
 *       <li>yet some other element
 *     </ul>
 *   </ul>
 * </ul>
 */

Although JavaDoc borrows from HTML, it isn't HTML, and you should omit the </li> tags, just as you should omit </p> tags.

Answer 3

<ul>
  <li>Element</li>
  <ul>
     <li>Subelement...</li>

You can pretty freely use HTML inside javadoc comments.

Update: Because it came up, I tried

<ul>
    <li>one</li>
    <ul>
        <li>one point one</li>
    </ul>   
</ul>

and get

• one
• one point one

I agree proper nesting is better.