snippetjavaCritical

Multiple line code example in Javadoc comment

Submitted by: @import:stackoverflow-api·Mar 10, 2026·

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linejavadocmultipleexamplecodecomment

Problem

I have a small code example I want to include in the Javadoc comment for a method.

/**
 * -- ex: looping through List of Map objects --
 * 
 * for (int i = 0; i 
 * 
 * @param query - select statement
 * @return List of Map objects
 */

The problem is the code example shows up in the Javadoc with no line breaks making it hard to read.

-- ex: looping through List of Map objects -- for (int i = 0; i list.size(); i++) { Map map = (Map)list.get(i); System.out.println(map.get("wordID")); System.out.println(map.get("word")); } 
Parameters
query - - select statement 
Returns:
List of Map objects

I guess I am wrong in assuming the code tag would handle line breaks. What is the best way to format code examples in Javadoc comments ?

Solution

In addition to the already mentioned ` tags, you should also use the @code

 JavaDoc annotation, which will make life much easier when it comes to HTML entities issues (in particular with Generics), e.g.:

* 
* {@code
* Set s;
* System.out.println(s);
* }
* 


Will give correct HTML output:

Set s;
System.out.println(s);


While omitting the

@code block (or using a ` tag) will result in HTML like this:

Set s;
System.out.println(s);

For reference, a full list of tag descriptions available in Java SE 8 can be found here.

Code Snippets

* <pre>
* {@code
* Set<String> s;
* System.out.println(s);
* }
* </pre>

Set<String> s;
System.out.println(s);

Set s;
System.out.println(s);

Context

Stack Overflow Q#541920, score: 902

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