What is the difference between inline comments and documentation comments?

• A. Inline comments explain specific lines or blocks; documentation comments describe public interfaces and usage for tools like Javadoc or XML docs.
• B. Inline comments describe public interfaces and usage; documentation comments annotate private details.
• C. Inline comments are for design diagrams; documentation comments annotate code blocks.
• D. Inline comments must be placed at the end of a line; documentation comments must be at the top of a file.

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is the purpose and scope of the notes you write in code. Inline comments are small notes attached to specific lines or blocks of code to explain why that particular code exists or what it’s doing in that moment. They help someone reading the code understand the logic or intent right where it matters. Documentation comments, by contrast, are written to describe the public interface of your code—the classes, methods, parameters, return values, and how to use them. These comments are designed to be processed by tools like Javadoc or XML documentation generators to produce external API docs for developers who will use your code, not just read the implementation.

This distinction makes the described choice the best fit: it accurately pairs inline comments with line- or block-level explanations and pairs documentation comments with descriptions of public interfaces and usage intended for documentation tools. The other statements misplace either the audience (public API vs. internal details), the content (design diagrams or private details), or the placement (end of a line, top of a file), which doesn’t align with how inline and documentation comments are used in practice.