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The javadoc-cleanup GitHub action is a utility to tidy up javadocs prior to deployment to an API documentation website, assumed hosted on GitHub Pages. It performs the following functions:
- Improves mobile browsing experience: It
inserts
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">within the<head>of each html file that was generated by javadoc, if not already present. Beginning with Java 16, javadoc properly defines the viewport, whereas prior to Java 16, it does not. - Strips out any timestamps inserted by javadoc: The timestamps cause a variety of version control
issues for documentation sites maintained in git repositories. Javadoc has an option
-notimestampto direct javadoc not to insert timestamps (which we recommend that you also use). However, at the present time there appears to be a bug (in OpenJDK 11's javadoc, and possibly other versions), where the timestamp is not ommitted in theoverview-summary.htmlgenerated by javadoc. - It is also capable of generating and inserting the canonical URL for each page, of the
form
<link rel="canonical" href="https://URL.TO.YOUR.API.DOC.WEBSITE/page.html">. - Enables inserting a user-defined block into the head of each javadoc generated page. For example, if you want to insert a link to your site's favicon, or a referrer policy, or really anything else that is valid in the head of an html file.
- In projects that use the Java Platform Module System (JPMS), javadoc redirects the root
index.htmlto the page of a module, and under certain other circumstances to a package page. Such redirected pages should direct search engines tonoindex, but javadoc doesn't do so. The javadoc-cleanup action inserts anoindex, followdirective in any such redirected pages.
The javadoc-cleanup GitHub action is designed to be used in combination with other GitHub Actions. For example, it does not commit and push the modified javadocs. See the Example Workflows for examples of combining with other actions in your workflow. We also have links to a few projects that are actively using the javadoc-cleanup action in the section Examples in Other Projects.
The remainder of the documentation is organized into the following sections:
- Inputs: Documentation of all of the actions's inputs.
- Outputs: Documentation of all of the actions's outputs.
- Example Workflows: Example workflows illustrating various features.
- Examples in Other Projects
- Built With: A list of the tools, etc used to develop this action.
- Blog Posts: A selection of blog posts about the GitHub Action.
- Support the Project: Information on various ways that you can support the project.
The path to the root of the website relative to the
root of the repository. The default is . which
is appropriate in cases where you are using a gh-pages branch
for your documentation site. If you are instead using this for a GitHub Pages site
in the docs directory, then
just pass docs for this input.
This is the url to the root of your website. If you provide this
input, then javadoc-cleanup will generate and insert a canonical
link for each page in the header, of the
form: <link rel="canonical" href="https://URL.TO.YOUR.API.DOC.WEBSITE/page.html">,
assuming base-url-path equals "https://URL.TO.YOUR.API.DOC.WEBSITE/" and
assuming page.html is the relevant filename.
This input can be used if there is anything else that you want to insert into the head of every javadoc generated page. For example if you want to insert links to the site's favicon. Here are a couple examples.
Perhaps you have an favicon.svg in the images directory of the documentation site, then the following will insert a link to it in the head of every javadoc generated page:
- name: Tidy up the javadocs
uses: cicirello/javadoc-cleanup@v1
with:
path-to-root: docs
user-defined-block: |
<link rel="icon" href="/images/favicon.svg" sizes="any" type="image/svg+xml">In the above, the | is what YAML calls a block scalar, essentially a multiline string.
In the example above, the string itself is only a single line, however, the advantage
of using this syntax is to avoid the need to escape all of the quote characters.
Perhaps there are multiple lines you want to insert into the head of the pages. This next example shows this using a case where perhaps you have both svg and png versions of your favicon.
- name: Tidy up the javadocs
uses: cicirello/javadoc-cleanup@v1
with:
path-to-root: docs
user-defined-block: |
<link rel="icon" href="/images/favicon.svg" sizes="any" type="image/svg+xml">
<link rel="icon" href="/images/favicon.png" type="image/png">Please note that the action does not attempt to check the syntax of your user-defined-block.
It simply inserts it verbatim into the head of every javadoc generated page.
This output is the count of the number of html pages modified by the action.
- The example workflows assume that
javadocis run via Maven, and it also assumes that Maven's default directory structure is in use (e.g., that output is to atargetdirectory). You should put Maven'stargetdirectory in your.gitignore. The example workflows include a step that copies the generated documentation from Maven's default oftarget/site/apidocsto thedocsfolder (assuming you are serving the documentation via GitHub Pages in thedocsfolder). - Depending upon the version of Java, javadoc may generate multiple zip files
of its search index, in addition to the JavaScript versions of those very
search index files. This is true of javadoc for Java 11, although more recent Java
versions have eliminated the zip files. These zip files are completely unnecessary.
The documentation will use the
jsversions of these. Additionally, thezipfiles are problematic for documentation sites served from a git repository because they will appear as if they changed every time javadoc runs, even if nothing has actually changed (e.g., due to time-stamping). We strongly recommend that for these reasons you add the five zip files to your.gitignore. They aremodule-search-index.zip,package-search-index.zip,type-search-index.zip,member-search-index.zip, andtag-search-index.zip. They are functionally unnecessary, as the.jscounterparts alone are sufficient for javadoc's search to work.
You can run the action with a step in yuor workflow like this (assuming that your javadocs are in docs directory:
- name: Tidy up the javadocs
uses: cicirello/javadoc-cleanup@v1
with:
path-to-root: docsIn the above example, the major release version was used, which ensures that you'll be using the latest patch level release, including any bug fixes, etc. If you prefer, you can also use a specific version such as with:
- name: Tidy up the javadocs
uses: cicirello/[email protected]
with:
path-to-root: docsThis example workflow is triggered by a push of java source files.
After setting up java, Maven is used to generate the javadocs, and
the javadocs are then copied from Maven default target location to the
docs directory where the GitHub Pages documentation site is assumed hosted.
After which, the javadoc-cleanup action runs. The workflow then outputs
the number of modified html pages (for logging purposes). The
workflow then commits the changes (if any).
This example doesn't push the changes,
but you can easily add a git push after the commit, or add another action to handle
that.
name: docs
on:
push:
branches: [ master ]
paths: [ '**.java' ]
jobs:
api-website:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout the repo
uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Set up the Java JDK
uses: actions/setup-java@v3
with:
java-version: '17'
distribution: 'adopt'
- name: Build docs with Maven
run: mvn javadoc:javadoc
- name: Copy to Documentation Website Location
run: |
rm -rf docs
cp -rf target/site/apidocs/. docs
- name: Tidy up the javadocs
id: tidy
uses: cicirello/javadoc-cleanup@v1
with:
path-to-root: docs
- name: Log javadoc-cleanup output
run: |
echo "modified-count = ${{ steps.tidy.outputs.modified-count }}"
- name: Commit documentation changes
run: |
if [[ `git status --porcelain` ]]; then
git config --global user.name 'YOUR NAME HERE'
git config --global user.email '[email protected]'
git add -A
git commit -m "Automated API website updates."
fiThis example workflow is mostly the same as above, except it also generates and inserts canonical links in each javadoc page.
name: docs
on:
push:
branches: [ master ]
paths: [ '**.java' ]
jobs:
api-website:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout the repo
uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Set up the Java JDK
uses: actions/setup-java@v3
with:
java-version: '17'
distribution: 'adopt'
- name: Build docs with Maven
run: mvn javadoc:javadoc
- name: Copy to Documentation Website Location
run: |
rm -rf docs
cp -rf target/site/apidocs/. docs
- name: Tidy up the javadocs
id: tidy
uses: cicirello/javadoc-cleanup@v1
with:
base-url-path: https://URL.FOR.YOUR.WEBSITE.GOES.HERE/
path-to-root: docs
- name: Log javadoc-cleanup output
run: |
echo "modified-count = ${{ steps.tidy.outputs.modified-count }}"
- name: Commit documentation changes
run: |
if [[ `git status --porcelain` ]]; then
git config --global user.name 'YOUR NAME HERE'
git config --global user.email '[email protected]'
git add -A
git commit -m "Automated API website updates."
fiThis example combines the javadoc-cleanup action with other actions. Specifically,
it uses the cicirello/generate-sitemap action
to generate a sitemap for the documentation website, and the
peter-evans/create-pull-request
action to create a pull request with the changes. Note that for this example,
the checkout action is called with fetch-depth: 0 because generate-sitemap needs
the complete commit history. This is unnecessary for usage of the javadoc-cleanup action
alone.
name: docs
on:
push:
branches: [ master ]
paths: [ '**.java' ]
jobs:
api-website:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout the repo
uses: actions/checkout@v4
with:
fetch-depth: 0
- name: Set up the Java JDK
uses: actions/setup-java@v3
with:
java-version: '17'
distribution: 'adopt'
- name: Build docs with Maven
run: mvn javadoc:javadoc
- name: Copy to Documentation Website Location
run: |
rm -rf docs
cp -rf target/site/apidocs/. docs
- name: Tidy up the javadocs
id: tidy
uses: cicirello/javadoc-cleanup@v1
with:
path-to-root: docs
base-url-path: https://URL.FOR.YOUR.WEBSITE.GOES.HERE/
- name: Log javadoc-cleanup output
run: |
echo "modified-count = ${{ steps.tidy.outputs.modified-count }}"
- name: Commit documentation changes
run: |
if [[ `git status --porcelain` ]]; then
git config --global user.name 'YOUR NAME HERE'
git config --global user.email '[email protected]'
git add -A
git commit -m "Automated API website updates."
fi
- name: Generate the sitemap
id: sitemap
uses: cicirello/generate-sitemap@v1
with:
base-url-path: https://URL.FOR.YOUR.WEBSITE.GOES.HERE/
path-to-root: docs
- name: Create Pull Request
uses: peter-evans/[email protected]
with:
title: "Automated API website updates."
commit-message: "Automated API documentation website updates."If you would like to see examples where the action is actively used, here are a few repositories that
are actively using the javadoc-cleanup action. The table provides a link to repositories using the
action, and direct links to the relevant workflow as well as to the api documentation sites that result
from the workflow.
| Repository | Workflow | Javadocs |
|---|---|---|
| Chips-n-Salsa | docs.yml | https://chips-n-salsa.cicirello.org/api/ |
| JavaPermutationTools | docs.yml | https://jpt.cicirello.org/api/ |
The javadoc-cleanup action uses the following:
- Python (implemented almost entirely in Python);
- The cicirello/pyaction Docker container, which is designed to support GitHub Actions development in the Python language (see pyaction's GitHub repository); and
- We started with our template repository for GitHub Actions implemented in Python: cicirello/python-github-action-template.
Here is a selection of blog posts about javadoc-cleanup on DEV.to:
- Deploy a Documentation Website for a Java Library Using GitHub Actions, posted on DEV on November 30, 2022.
- Post-Process Javadoc-Generated Documentation in GitHub Actions Before Deploying to the Web, posted on DEV on November 16, 2022.
You can support the project in a number of ways:
- Starring: If you find the
javadoc-cleanupaction useful, consider starring the repository. - Sharing with Others: Consider sharing it with others who you feel might find it useful.
- Reporting Issues: If you find a bug or have a suggestion for a new feature, please report it via the Issue tracker.
- Contributing Code: If there is an open issue that you think you can help with, submit a pull request.
- Sponsoring: You can also consider becoming a sponsor.
The scripts and documentation for this GitHub action are released under the MIT License.
