rust-lang / rust-lang/rust-analyzer

[Feature Request] Automatic documentation comment generation (for methods, types, mods, etc.)

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Rust
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Description

Coming from the worlds of both .NET/Visual Studio and Python, one of the creature comforts I got to expect from an IDE is the automatic generation of documentation comments (or at least the boilerplate for one) for certain types of data (functions/classes, etc).

Most of the crates I have encountered so far have superb documentation. However, the documentation are usually written by hand, and I imagine having an automated tool for generating at least the boilerplate could streamline the process.

Here's an example from a VSCode extension which accomplishes similar goals for python:
image

In my research, I encountered RFC1574. Furthermore, adopting this suggestion on how implement documentation in a machine-readable way could open up the way for automatic generation of said boilerplate and allow for more fixes in the future, such as:

  • Checking for compliance with the structure above.
  • Suggesting the user to change the documentation after changes in the code (e.g. adding/removing/reordering function arguments, etc.)

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reading RFC1574 and the linked machine-readable inline documentation proposal, then compare their goals with rust-analyzer's current capabilities. The issue does not name files, tests, or an entry point; work is complete only after the scope and implementation approach for generating documentation-comment boilerplate are defined and accepted.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
documentation, tooling
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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