What are the C# documentation tags?

Question

In C# documentation tags allow you to produce output similar to MSDN. What are a list of allowable tags for use inside the /// (triple slash) comment area above classes, methods, and properties?

Answer 1

Recommended Tags for Documentation Comments

Answer 2

MSDN article from 2002 detailing all the tags and when to use them:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc302121.aspx

Answer 3

Check out http://thoughtpad.net/alan-dean/cs-xml-documentation.html. Great documentation on the various C# XML documentation tags. (Go to the bottom to see the tags)

Answer 4

See the excellent MSDN article here as your first stop.

Answer 5

GhostDoc helps by creating a stub comment for your method/class.

Answer 6

If you type this just above a method or class, intellisense should prompt you with a list of available tags:

/// <

Answer 7

Here's a list:

• summary
• param
• returns
• example
• code
• see
• seealso
• list
• value
• author
• file
• copyright

Here's an example:

<file>
<copyright>(c) Extreme Designers Inc. 2008.</copyright>
<author>Kevin Driedger</author>
<datecreated>2008-09-15</datecreated>
<summary>
Here's my summary
</summary>
<remarks>
<para>The <see cref="TextReader"/> can be used in the following ways:
<list type="number">
<item>first item</item>
<item>second item</item>
</list>
</remarks>
<example>
<code>
System.Console.WriteLine("Hello, World");
</code>
</example>
<param name="aParam">My first param</param>
<returns>an object that represents a summary</returns>
</file>

Answer 8

Look inside the docs for Sandcastle. This is the new documentation standard for .NET.