What is pldoc?

pldoc is an open-source utility for generating HTML documentation of code written in Oracle PL/SQL.

The goal is to provide a tool analogous to javadoc for Java.

To get quick idea what the tool does, look at the following example:

Suppose you have PL/SQL code:

sample1.sql
sample2.sql
sample3.sql

And maybe a short description file:

overview.html

You then run pldoc using command like this:

$ pldoc -d sampleOutput -doctitle TheBigApp -overview overview.html sample*.sql

pldoc version: 0.6.8
Parsing file sample1.sql ...
Parsing file sample2.sql ...
Parsing file sample3.sql ...
Generating HTML files ...
Generating summary.html ...
Generating allpackages.html ...
Generating index.html ...
Generating <unit>.html ...
Done (6.366 seconds).

This HTML will be created in the directory you specified (sampleOutput):

Resulting HTML

Resulting HTML

Supported Databases

Although PL/SQL originally ran only in Oracle's family of databases, other database manufacturers have implemented PL/SQL compatibility layers and, given some effort, PLDoc may also be run against these additional databases.

Notes

  • Although pldoc can process code without any comments and can handle some usual /**/ and -- comments, you will get the best result if you use formal comments (/** ...*/) in your PL/SQL code.
  • pldoc follows javadoc conventions for writing comments etc as close as possible, as those conventions has become de-facto standard for many other similar tools (and no other standards actually exist).
  • pldoc is written entirely in java and is platform-independent.
  • Presently, pldoc has only command line interface, no GUI.