Question

I have a class which contains this method

/**
* Uses the native RegExp object and the native string.replace to replace text
* @name _replace
* @param {String} find Text string or regex to search for
* @param {String} replace Text string or regex for replacing
* @param {String} string   String to perfom the replace on
* @returns {String} Returns the string with the text replaced
*/  
this._replace = function(find, replace, str) {
    var regex;

    if(typeof find !== undefined && replace !== undefined && typeof str === 'string') {
        regex = new RegExp(find, this._getFlags()); 
        return str.replace(regex, replace, str);            
    } else {
        return false;
    }

};

It is prefixed with _ to distinguish it from the replace method which is for the public interface. Why won’t JSDoc document this method when it has a _ in front? If I remove it it documents it perfectly. Is there anything I can do to make JSDoc document this method?

Answer 1

jsdoc-toolkit assumes that methods starting with _ are private. This is indeed a common convention. You can see that the method is included by running with --private option.

To force documenting it as public, include @public tag.

BTW, you don’t need to use @name, the name of a function is detected automatically on most cases.