Invalid Arguments detected (NullPointerException)

[jdcrensh]

Executing the program breaks with NullPointerException in ClassModel#compare. Paths given are relative to apexdoc.jar, which is in my project root (also tried absolute paths). The two html paths given in the parameters do exist.

The same error occurs when providing only the -s and -t flags (and only the -s flag), except that it shows nine lines of Error: null instead of two.

System: OS X El Capitan 10.11.3

$ java -version
java version "1.8.0_31"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_31-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.31-b07, mixed mode)

$ java -jar apexdoc.jar -s ./src/classes \
    -t ./docs \
    -p 'global;public;private;testmethod;webService' \
    -g https://example.com/repo/src/classes \
    -h ./homepage.html \
    -a ./projectheader.html

Error: null
Error: null
java.lang.NullPointerException
    at org.salesforce.apexdoc.ClassModel$1.compare(ClassModel.java:55)
    at org.salesforce.apexdoc.ClassModel$1.compare(ClassModel.java:1)
    at java.util.TimSort.binarySort(TimSort.java:292)
    at java.util.TimSort.sort(TimSort.java:217)
    at java.util.Arrays.sort(Arrays.java:1512)
    at java.util.ArrayList.sort(ArrayList.java:1454)
    at java.util.Collections.sort(Collections.java:175)
    at org.salesforce.apexdoc.ClassModel.getMethodsSorted(ClassModel.java:48)
    at org.salesforce.apexdoc.FileManager.htmlForClassModel(FileManager.java:217)
    at org.salesforce.apexdoc.FileManager.makeFile(FileManager.java:143)
    at org.salesforce.apexdoc.FileManager.createDoc(FileManager.java:429)
    at org.salesforce.apexdoc.ApexDoc.RunApexDoc(ApexDoc.java:128)
    at org.salesforce.apexdoc.ApexDoc.main(ApexDoc.java:36)
null
ApexDoc - a tool for generating documentation from Salesforce Apex code class files.

    Invalid Arguments detected.  The correct syntax is:

apexdoc -s <source_directory> [-t <target_directory>] [-g <source_url>] [-h <homefile>] [-a <authorfile>] [-p <scope>]

<source_directory> - The folder location which contains your apex .cls classes
<target_directory> - Optional. Specifies your target folder where documentation will be generated.
<source_url> - Optional. Specifies a URL where the source is hosted (so ApexDoc can provide links to your source).
<homefile> - Optional. Specifies the html file that contains the contents for the home page's content area.
<authorfile> - Optional. Specifies the text file that contains project information for the documentation header.
<scope> - Optional. Semicolon seperated list of scopes to document.  Defaults to 'global;public'.

[jdcrensh]

Interestingly, adding a blank access modifier (extra semicolon for private classes without modifier) to the -p flag stopped the error. But doing so seems to have caused an infinite loop (no output, never exits)...

$ java -jar apexdoc.jar -s ./src/classes -p 'global;public;private;;testmethod;webService'

Removing public from the -p list allows the docs to be generated for everything else (with a long list of Error: null).

If public is the only value in the -p list, docs are generated for public classes (still, lots of Error: null output). The moment I add another modifier, the error occurs.

[Patlatus]

I have the same error. @jdcrensh were you able to solve this or do you have workaround?

[Patlatus]

I use parameters "-s C:\Users\user\workspace\project\src\classes -t C:\Users\user\workspace\project\docs"

[Patlatus]

I have debugged this, a few lessons I have learned so far:

1. The documentation is totally wrong; one doesn't have to put apostrophes to line "-p 'global;public;private;testmethod;webService'", instead we just just put "-p global;public;private;testmethod;webService".
2. Null pointer exception happens on line 331 of ApexDoc.java class https://github.com/SalesforceFoundation/ApexDoc/blob/master/src/org/salesforce/apexdoc/ApexDoc.java#L331 because cModel == null if there is a class without any of directives like

@istest
class TestSomeTest {

Such classes are treated like private by Salesforce but misinterpreted by ApexDoc.

1. If I put "-p global;public;private;;testmethod;webService" then probably it can avoid this error however looks like my version of this process running has hung and I can't be sure.
2. There is another modification of apex doc by StevenWCox http://force-code.com/category/apexdoc/ which runs without errors just ignoring classes which are private but which do not have 'private' directive

[eroispaziali]

Hey guys, I know it's a bit off-topic but I am working on a cloud-based apex documentation tool. Still a working prototype with a few bugs, but the parsing is more robust and I would be very happy to get some feedback from real world projects if you want to give it a try. @Patlatus @jdcrensh

[Patlatus]

@eroispaziali, could you please share you code base? I have tried to run it but I believe it has got stuck. Probably if I look at the code I may understand why it has got stuck and why do you need so many permissions from the Salesforce organization

[Patlatus]

@eroispaziali
Forcedocs is asking to:

Access your basic information
Access and manage your data
Provide access to your data via the Web
Access and manage your Chatter data
Provide access to custom applications
Allow access to your unique identifier
Access custom permissions
Access and manage your Wave data
Perform requests on your behalf at any time ???

Why this app needs so many permissions?

[jdcrensh]

@Patlatus I gave up trying to get around the error, but nice find on a maintained ApexDoc. I'll have to give that a shot. For anyone else reading this, it has a GitLab repo at StevenWCox/sfapexdoc.

[bohdan-dovhan]

@jdcrensh Yeah, I like it. I even tried to modify it and fix the markup it generates and to make it possible to generate VisualForce pages instead of html pages.

[bohdan-dovhan]

@jdcrensh By the way, I have eventually fixed this null-pointer exception, but after that I have found another big bug. I prefer Steven's version since that one doesn't have so many critical bugs

[jdcrensh]

@bohdan-dovhan Generating as VisualForce pages is a cool idea, but wouldn't that kind of pollute pages/ when there are a lot of classes? I have similar thought... How about packaging up the docs into a React/React-Router app as a static resource, which is served by a single page? I may put something like that together for the community when I have the time to revisit my documentation efforts, if I'm not beaten to it.

[bohdan-dovhan]

@jdcrensh Yeah, I totally agree that might pollute /pages/. So I was thinking about of packaging of all html files generated into a static resource itself (without any kind of react-router app), but it works if the size of compressed zip file is less than 5 Mb, if it is bigger, it is not possible to upload into Salesforce as a static resource

[bohdan-dovhan]

@jdcrensh I was also thinking of breaking the html files zipped into separate static resources, but in such case the interlinks will be broken. Also one junior developer from my team suggested to generate docs on the fly, but this solution requires too much development time. However, if we ever implemented this, it would be cool, since in such case we wouldn't have to use any kind of java application and we wouldn't have to retrieve classes first, then run java app, then load it back into a static resource or VisualForce pages or Google sites.