VC++ Comments, Documentation and IntelliSense

Question

In C#, I comment methods like this:

    /// <summary>
    /// Does absolutely nothing
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="a">First useless parameter</param>
    /// <param name="b">Second useless parameter</param>
    /// <returns>zero</returns>
    public int Foo(int a, int b)
    {
        return 0;
    }

Which gives very nice IntelliSense hint window:

What, if any, is the equivalent in Visual C++ or (even better) a solution that would work in other IDEs like XCode or Eclipse?

Update

I found this similar question, but @edtheprogrammerguy's answer has good references so I'll leave the questino here here. Also, SO won't let me delete my question.

Update the Second

A lot of the C# XML comments (<summary>, for instance) work out of the box. It'd be nice if the /// comment automatically inserted the required summary, param and returns tags, but I imagine that it'd be pretty easy to implement with a new code snippet.

Update the third

Here's a code snippet that inserts the header. It doesn't scan the method parameter list, but it's a nice start. Save to Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Code Snippets\Visual C++\My Code Snippets as anything with a .snippet extension, restart VS, and activate by typing summ + TAB above a method.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<CodeSnippets xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/CodeSnippet">
  <CodeSnippet Format="1.0.0">
    <Header>
      <SnippetTypes>
        <SnippetType>Expansion</SnippetType>
      </SnippetTypes>
      <Title>SnippetFile1</Title>
      <Author>dlively</Author>
      <Description>Insert a summary/param/return header for a method</Description>
      <HelpUrl>
      </HelpUrl>
      <Shortcut>summ</Shortcut>
    </Header>
    <Snippet>
      <Declarations>
        <Literal Editable="true">
          <ID>summary_text</ID>
          <ToolTip>summary_text</ToolTip>
          <Default>Insert description of method</Default>
          <Function>
          </Function>
        </Literal>
        <Literal Editable="true">
          <ID>returns_text</ID>
          <ToolTip>returns_text</ToolTip>
          <Default>Description of return value</Default>
          <Function>
          </Function>
        </Literal>
        <Literal Editable="true">
          <ID>parameter_name</ID>
          <ToolTip>parameter_name</ToolTip>
          <Default>Name of the parameter</Default>
          <Function>
          </Function>
        </Literal>
        <Literal Editable="true">
          <ID>parameter_description</ID>
          <ToolTip>parameter_description</ToolTip>
          <Default>Description</Default>
          <Function>
          </Function>
        </Literal>
      </Declarations>
      <Code Language="cpp" Kind="method decl"><![CDATA[/// <summary>
/// $summary_text$
/// </summary>
/// <param name="$parameter_name$">$parameter_description$</param>
/// <returns>$returns_text$</returns>]]></Code>
    </Snippet>
  </CodeSnippet>
</CodeSnippets>

Also, see the very nice Code Snippet Designer VS extension which makes creating these a breeze.

Answer 1

It is for producing documentation from the source files. The /doc compiler option will cause it to generate an .xdc file which can be turned into an .xml documentation file. VC++ is not as nice about Intellisense as C# is.

References:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177227.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms173501.aspx

Answer 2

Regarding automatically inserting comment tags by typing ///, I wrote an extension - CppTripleSlash that you might find useful.