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macOS Accessing Java API docs

P

pbw

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 18, 2006
12
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I have downloaded the latest Java update, and the associated devdocs from ADC, and installed them. In the devdocs are the src.jar and docs.jar, at /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.Framework/Versions/1.6.0/Home.

The docs.jar contains the compressed Java API docs, but is there a "Mac" way to access the APIs? I have extracted them and put them in a convenient location, so that I can access then with a browser, which is my most frequent way of looking at them. Is there another way?
 
Do you use an IDE for your Java development? If you do, which one? The way you set up your IDE to look at the documentation depends on which IDE you use.
 
Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I use NetBeans and IntelliJ. I have no problem with setting up the docs for use in the IDEs - just tell them where the jar file is.

However, I frequently just browse the Javadocs, especially when I'm trying to find the right classes to do a particular job. That's when being able to browse with a browser comes in handy.
 
Now I don't understand your question. If you can access the JavaDocs from the IDE and you can browse them with your browser, what are you looking for?
 
Since a browser cannot read the contents of JARs, you will have to extract the java doc contents into a directory of your choice and view the HTML files from there.
 
iShater said:
Since a browser cannot read the contents of JARs, you will have to extract the java doc contents into a directory of your choice and view the HTML files from there.
Click to expand...

Exactly, and that's what I have done. My question is whether there is a procedure in place for doing just this, and putting the expanded docs into a standard location. It seems a bit of an oversight for Apple not to provide such a mechanism when they bundle up the src and the docs.

I saw a reference to a shell script that extracted the docs, in a thread from about 2002/3, for a much earlier version of Java, obviously. I was wondering whether there was a modern equivalent.
 
pbw said:
Exactly, and that's what I have done. My question is whether there is a procedure in place for doing just this, and putting the expanded docs into a standard location. It seems a bit of an oversight for Apple not to provide such a mechanism when they bundle up the src and the docs.

I saw a reference to a shell script that extracted the docs, in a thread from about 2002/3, for a much earlier version of Java, obviously. I was wondering whether there was a modern equivalent.
Click to expand...

JARs are just zip files. Either use terminal to extract the contents or use a zip utility to extract it. I don't think there is really an "official" procedure for this.
 
pbw said:
However, I thought there might be a "mac way". Apparently not. I just found this:
http://confluence.concord.org/display/CCTR/Get+local+copies+of+Mac+OS+X+Java+source+code+and+Javadoc
Click to expand...

I'm in the same position! It looks as if there used to be a unjarJavaDocumentation.sh for earlier versions, that unpacked to roots such as /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5.0/Resources/Documentation/Reference/doc/api/, but I've no idea where that would come from. (There's a Javadoc dashboard widget that looks in the above & equivalent roots for 1.4.2 & 1.6).
 
gwynevans said:
I'm in the same position! It looks as if there used to be a unjarJavaDocumentation.sh for earlier versions, that unpacked to roots such as /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5.0/Resources/Documentation/Reference/doc/api/, but I've no idea where that would come from. (There's a Javadoc dashboard widget that looks in the above & equivalent roots for 1.4.2 & 1.6).
Click to expand...

That's good to know. In that case, I'll try dropping the expanded docs into Resources/Documentation.
 
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