Awesome

Doxide is a documentation generator for C++.

• It is configured with YAML, generates Markdown, and publishes HTML with a modern look and responsive design for desktop and mobile devices.
• It is open source under an Apache 2.0 license, and runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows.
• It is written in C++ so that its primary users, C++ developers, can readily contribute.
• C++ source code is documented with /** comments */ containing @commands, as with the classic tool Doxygen. Many commands from Doxygen are already supported.
• C++ source code is parsed with Tree-sitter, the same parser used by many syntax highlighters.

By generating Markdown, Doxide opens C++ documentation to the whole wide world of static site generation tools and themes. There is particular support for MkDocs and the Material for MkDocs theme, as on the Doxide website. A little extra effort enables alternatives such as Jekyll and Hugo. Other formats such as PDF are possible too, via Pandoc.

Instructions for installing from source are provided here. See the website for packages for Linux, Mac, and Windows that are easier to install.

License

Doxide is open source software. It is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use it except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.

Requirements

• A C++ toolchain for building.
• CMake for building.
• LibYAML.
• Possibly ICU, depending on your platform.

On Debian-based Linux systems, install these with:

sudo apt install cmake libyaml-dev libicu-dev

On RPM-based Linux systems, install these with (replace dnf for Fedora with zypper for openSUSE, or otherwise for your distribution):

dnf install cmake libyaml-devel libicu-devel

On Mac systems using Homebrew, use:

brew install cmake libyaml

On Windows, build and install LibYAML separately from the contrib/libyaml directory.

There are further dependencies that do not need to be installed separately. They are included as submodules in the contrib/ subdirectory either because they are not universally available in package managers or specific versions are required. The Doxide build handles these for you, but for reference:

• CLI11
• Tree-sitter
• Tree-sitter C++ language support
• glob

Installation

To install from source, clone the Doxide repo with:

git clone https://github.com/lawmurray/doxide --recurse-submodules

The --recurse-submodules is necessary to bring in some dependencies that are not universally available in package managers.

Build and install with:

cd doxide
cmake .
cmake --build .
cmake --install .

The last command may need sudo. Alternatively, provide a prefix to install somewhere local:

cmake --install . --prefix $HOME/.local

Material for MkDocs is recommended for publishing your documentation. It is distributed as a Python package. Install it with:

pip install mkdocs-material

Quick start

Run, from within your source code directory:

doxide init

This will create a doxide.yaml configuration file, as well as some additional files for publishing with Material for MkDocs. To start, it is not necessary to modify any of these.

Build the Markdown:

doxide build

This will populate the output directory (default: docs).

Build the HTML:

mkdocs build

This will populate the site directory.

Serve the HTML:

mkdocs serve

and point your browser to localhost:8000.

Further information

For further information, see doxide.org.