Excluding directories for Doxygen

Question

I want Doxygen to ignore, bypass, not search the following directories of my project:

*/.svn/*
*/docs/*
*/Properties/*
*/bin/*

According to the Doxygen FAQ:

How can I exclude all test directories from my directory tree?

Simply put an exclude pattern like this in the configuration file:

EXCLUDE_PATTERNS = */test/*

So, my Doxygen file looks like this:

# If the value of the INPUT tag contains directories, you can use the 
# EXCLUDE_PATTERNS tag to specify one or more wildcard patterns to exclude 
# certain files from those directories. Note that the wildcards are matched 
# against the file with absolute path, so to exclude all test directories 
# for example use the pattern */test/*

EXCLUDE_PATTERNS       = */.svn/* \
                         */docs/* \
                         */published/* \
                         */bin/* \
                         */obj/*

The output from Doxygen is:

Searching for include files...
Searching for example files...
Searching for images...
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/.svn
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/.svn/prop-base
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/.svn/props
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/.svn/text-base
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/.svn/tmp
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/.svn/tmp/prop-base
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/.svn/tmp/props
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/.svn/tmp/text-base
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/.svn
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/.svn/prop-base
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/.svn/props
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/.svn/text-base
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/.svn/tmp
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/.svn/tmp/prop-base
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/.svn/tmp/props
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/.svn/tmp/text-base
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/search
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/search/.svn
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/search/.svn/prop-base
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/search/.svn/props
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/search/.svn/text-base
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/search/.svn/tmp
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/search/.svn/tmp/prop-base
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/search/.svn/tmp/props
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/html/search/.svn/tmp/text-base
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/rtf
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/rtf/.svn
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/rtf/.svn/prop-base
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/rtf/.svn/props
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/rtf/.svn/text-base
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/rtf/.svn/tmp
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/rtf/.svn/tmp/prop-base
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/rtf/.svn/tmp/props
Searching for files in directory c:/Test_Fixtures/pc_application/docs/rtf/.svn/tmp/text-base

Which clearly shows that the EXCLUDE_PATTERNS is not working. I also have the EXCLUDE option set as:

# The EXCLUDE tag can be used to specify files and/or directories that should 
# excluded from the INPUT source files. This way you can easily exclude a 
# subdirectory from a directory tree whose root is specified with the INPUT tag.

EXCLUDE                = ../.svn \
                         ../docs \
                         ../published \
                         ../docs/.svn \
                         ../docs/.svn

Which is not working either.

So, the USD$ 100000 question is: How do I make Doxygen exclude, bypass, ignore, stay clear of specified directories or folders (preferably something that works)?

I am using the Doxygen Wizard on Windows 7 on 64-bit CPU platform, and Doxygen 1.7.3.

Edurne Pascual · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-01T10:43:05.643

Note that the wildcards are matched against the file with absolute path

So, just use absolute paths for your exclusions ;)

PS: BTW, I have struggled too many times with that. This small mention on the doxyfile's comment seems to go unnoticed too often.

Oops, I missed the detail that you had already tried that. Maybe it's an issue with the multi-line value: try inlining all the paths, using just a space as separator. That (plus absolute patterns) is enough on the few systems I have been using doxygen lately.

I have done some deeper testing, and also taken another look at the doxyfile's documentation. The correct syntax is using space for separation. If you really want to go multi-line, the supported and documented syntax would be:

EXCLUDE_PATTERNS       = */.svn/*
EXCLUDE_PATTERNS      += */docs/*
EXCLUDE_PATTERNS      += */published/*
# and so on

Also, take a closer look at how exclude patterns work: the directory itself is included, then everything within it will be tested against the exclude patterns and (since it will always match), be excluded on a file-per-file basis.

So take a closer look at your output: the Searching for files in directory lines are supposed to be there (doxygen will search the directory, but find nothing on it because everything is being excluded); are you getting Parsing code for file or Generating docs for for any of the contents on those directories? If you don't get any of those, this means that everything is working fine (directories are searched, but nothing on them is included). If the files are indeed being included, give the space separation or the += syntax a try. I see nothing on the docs even hinting that your \ syntax could work (of course, I may have overlooked something).

Unfortunately it still searches in ALL subfolders under each .svn folder. I don't think this is right, excluding the parent should automatically exclude all children (not even searching on them). Is there a way to exclude all .svn folders and subfolders from being searched by Doxygen? — , Jul 13 '11 at 10:15
@noisefree: I did it the other way around. I turned off recursive searching in doxygen, and specified which directories it should scan. Since I only had the base directory and an include directory, it only required two entries. Might not work as well if there is a lot of dirs and subdirs that you want to scan. — iceaway, Jan 25 '12 at 13:22
What do I do if the directory name has space? For example, if it is test files. — hkBattousai, Apr 28 '16 at 14:14

Félix Gagnon-Grenier · Answer 2 · 2021-05-14T14:30:07.020

How do I make Doxygen exclude, bypass, ignore, stay clear of specified directories or folders (preferably something that works)?

Use the INPUT configuration option!

INPUT = src other_folder README.md

As mentioned, exclude patterns will still consider the files in the directories, and not parse them based on it matching the regex. Specifying folders and files to be considered will achieve the desired result of not even searching the folders in the first place, which can dramatically improve generation time.

Note that this needs the EXCLUDE directive to be empty, or the searching will happen.

Precisions from David C.'s comment:

More precisely, adding a directory to the EXCLUDE directive causes everything in that directory to be searched. You can exclude specific files (that would otherwise by hit by the INPUT directive) without blowing up the search process.

More precisely, adding a *directory* to the `EXCLUDE` directive causes everything in that directory to be searched. You can exclude specific *files* (that would otherwise by hit by the `INPUT` directive) without blowing up the search process. — David C., Aug 04 '20 at 15:46

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 09 '13 at 22:28

Note that I can see a similar phenomenon when I use doxygen. However, that happens when the tool searches for example files and images:

Searching for example files...
Searching for files in directory .../wpkg/mainline/documentation
Searching for files in directory .../wpkg/mainline/documentation/.svn
Searching for files in directory .../wpkg/mainline/documentation/.svn/prop-base
[...]
Searching for images...
Searching for files in directory .../wpkg/mainline/documentation
Searching for files in directory .../wpkg/mainline/documentation/.svn
Searching for files in directory .../wpkg/mainline/documentation/.svn/prop-base
[...]

As you have the the EXCLUDE_PATTERNS setup to ignore the .svn sub-directories. I suppose that's a bug in doxygen which should check for those exclusions when scanning for examples and images.

Also it looks like it could be that it prints all the directories on the screen, but properly ignores them as before using them it checks the exclusion patterns. But that is just a guess; although it seems someone says that's the way it works here:

http://doxygen.10944.n7.nabble.com/EXCLUDE-DIRECTORY-PATTERN-td2185.html

Note that Subversion changed their scheme and instead of one .svn sub-directory per directory, there is only one in the root now. That means we can run doxygen in sub-directories without subversion side effects now (since Ubuntu 13.04 at least). — Alexis Wilke, Jan 28 '14 at 01:43

Excluding directories for Doxygen

3 Answers3

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