DocFX currently only supports generating metadata with namespace defined

[simax]

When I run docfx docfx.json --serve from the command line I get warnings for a couple of projects in my solution.

Warning: No namespace is found in assembly XXX. DocFX currently only supports generating metadata with namespace defined.

How do I fix this?

[chenkennt]

@simax it's not a good practice to define types in global namespace. Do you have any classes defined in global namespace?

[simax]

No, all classes etc are defined inside namespaces. Its only producing this error for 2 of the 8 projects in the solution. I can't see anything different about those 2.

[AcousticGuitar]

I have the same issue. I downloaded DocFx added it to my environment's path. I then per instructions performed the docfx init and docfx --serve. Everything came up but needed additional content. The code I'm trying to include lives in 7 different projects, so I added one of them to the docfx\src folder per instructions. I went back to the command line and ran docfx init (again) and docfx -serve (again). Attempting to serve the file resulted in:

No namespace is found in assembly X.Y.Z DocFX currently only support generating metadata with namespace defined.   
No files are found with glob patter apidoc/**.md, excluding obj/**, _site/**, under directory (the docfx directory).

Note I've code commented all the content in that project, and if I use Sandcastle Help File Builder all of the documentation shows up with no issues. The project X.Y.Z has no issues compiling and runnning, it's just when I attempt to document it in docFX where these namespace issues happen.

Please advise.

[AcousticGuitar]

After a bit of hacking was able to get this to work. Here's the solution for me.

Using DocFX to document "other" projects

1. Follow instructions on getting DocFx onto your system and entering the proper Environment Path
2. Create a new document folder for this project.
3. Open the command prompt to that new folder and type in docfx init.
4. Press the enter key to take the default answers to each question
5. Copy the project or solution files to be documented with all of the source code into the "src" folder
6. In the same command window type in docfx docfx.json --serve
7. Open browser to http://localhost:8080/
8. Click on the tab "Api Documentation" to see the code comments.

[simax]

Interesting, my solution is an existing .Net solution and I placed the docfx_project folder at the same level as my existing src folder.

I then configured my docfx.json as follows:

{
  "metadata": [
    {
      "src": [
        {
          "cwd":  "../",
          "files": [
            "src/**.csproj"
          ],
          "exclude": [
            "**/obj/**",
            "**/bin/**",
            "_site/**"
          ]
        }
      ],
      "dest": "api",
      "filter": "filterconfig.yml"
    }
  ],
  "build": {
    "content": [
      {
        "files": [
          "api/**.yml",
          "api/index.md"
        ]
      },
      {
        "files": [
          "articles/**.md",
          "articles/**/toc.yml",
          "toc.yml",
          "*.md"
        ],
        "exclude": [
          "obj/**",
          "_site/**"
        ]
      }
    ],
    "resource": [
      {
        "files": [
          "images/**"
        ],
        "exclude": [
          "obj/**",
          "_site/**"
        ]
      }
    ],
    "overwrite": [
      {
        "files": [
          "apidoc/**.md"
        ],
        "exclude": [
          "obj/**",
          "_site/**"
        ]
      }
    ],
    "dest": "_site",
    "template": [
      "default"
    ],
    "noLangKeyword": false
  }
}

Although this appears to be a valid configuration as per the docs. It produces the error I described. I don't understand why it only complains about 2 of the 8 projects in the solution.

[chenkennt]

Actually the message is not accurate, it actually means there're types under global namespace. I suspect they're compiler generated types. We'll update the code to print out all types under global namespace so that you can get more details about this issue.

[superyyrrzz]

@simax We improved the warning message in dev branch. You can try it to see whether it still generates warning.

[simax]

Unfortunately I only have VS2013 installed at the moment. so I can't build the dev branch to try it.

[chenkennt]

then you can wait until our next release which will be available in two weeks.