Re: some questions on Hurd
On Fri, 01 Dec 2000, Neal H Walfield wrote:
> > Which brings me to another question: The Documentation on the Hurd (hurd.ps)
> > which I got from the web is often confusing, especially according to whether a
> > function was supplied by a lib or required to be provided to a lib.
> > Since this is a task where you can´t mess things up, I´d volonteer to update
> > that documentation (is it the latest: (c) says 1994,1998 ? ).
>
> Please do!
The thing about the 'doing' is that the hurd.ps is derived from hurd.dvi whic
in case is (probably) also derived from - well, from what? I´d not like to
start from scratch but use the sources to continue with.
As soon as I know where to get them and whom to submit patches/diffs I´ll be
off on it.
> > Also related to this topic: The Linux kernel-people are using DocBook to
> > extract documentation from the source - I think that helps a lot. (lazy me
> > rather codes than maintains external docs... )
>
> TeX-info is the official text processor for gnu projects. However, I
> know nothing about DocBook.
>
Sorry - misunderstanding: DocBook is for extracting documentation from sources
or headers. The chance to get someone to document her functions in place is
much higher than to get him to do it externally.
Is TeX-info also capable of extracting such info from source-files, btw?
I have attached the kernel-doc-nano-HOWTO (from kernel 2.4-sources) which
explains what you can do with it and how. I used this tool while programming
with kdevelop, which has builtin support for it and I like it.
uli
kernel-doc nano-HOWTO
=====================
Many places in the source tree have extractable documentation in the
form of block comments above functions. The components of this system
are:
- scripts/kernel-doc
This is a perl script that hunts for the block comments and can mark
them up directly into DocBook, man, text, and HTML. (No, not
texinfo.)
- Documentation/DocBook/*.tmpl
These are SGML template files, which are normal SGML files with
special place-holders for where the extracted documentation should
go.
- scripts/docproc.c
This is a program for converting SGML template files into SGML
files. It invokes kernel-doc, giving it the list of functions that
are to be documented.
- scripts/gen-all-syms
This is a script that lists the EXPORT_SYMBOL symbols in a list of C
files.
- scripts/docgen
This script invokes docproc, telling it which functions are to be
documented (this list comes from gen-all-syms).
- Makefile
The targets 'sgmldocs', 'psdocs', and 'pdfdocs' are used to build
DocBook files, PostScript files, and PDF files in
Documentation/DocBook.
- Documentation/DocBook/Makefile
This is where C files are associated with SGML templates.
How to extract the documentation
--------------------------------
If you just want to read the ready-made books on the various
subsystems (see Documentation/DocBook/*.tmpl), just type 'make
psdocs', or 'make pdfdocs', depending on your preference. If you
would rather read a different format, you can type 'make sgmldocs' and
then use DocBook tools to convert Documentation/DocBook/*.sgml to a
format of your choice (for example, 'db2html ...').
If you want to see man pages instead, you can do this:
$ cd linux
$ scripts/kernel-doc -man $(find -name '*.c' '*.h') | split-man.pl /tmp/man
Here is split-man.pl:
-->
#!/usr/bin/perl
if ($#ARGV < 0) {
die "where do I put the results?\n";
}
mkdir $ARGV[0],0777 or die "Can't create $ARGV[0]: $!\n";
$state = 0;
while (<STDIN>) {
if (/^\.TH \"[^\"]*\" 4 \"([^\"]*)\"/) {
if ($state == 1) { close OUT }
$state = 1;
$fn = "$ARGV[0]/$1.4";
print STDERR "Creating $fn\n";
open OUT, ">$fn" or die "can't open $fn: $!\n";
print OUT $_;
} elsif ($state != 0) {
print OUT $_;
}
}
close OUT;
<--
If you just want to view the documentation for one function in one
file, you can do this:
$ scripts/kernel-doc -man -function fn file | nroff -man | less
or this:
$ scripts/kernel-doc -text -function fn file
How to add extractable documentation to your source files
---------------------------------------------------------
The format of the block comment is like this:
/**
* function_name(:)? (- short description)?
(* @parameterx: (description of parameter x)?)*
(* a blank line)?
* (Description:)? (Description of function)?
* (section header: (section description)? )*
(*)?*/
The short function description cannot be multiline, but the other
descriptions can be.
All descriptive text is further processed, scanning for the following special
patterns, which are highlighted appropriately.
'funcname()' - function
'$ENVVAR' - environment variable
'&struct_name' - name of a structure (up to two words including 'struct')
'@parameter' - name of a parameter
'%CONST' - name of a constant.
Take a look around the source tree for examples.
How to make new SGML template files
-----------------------------------
SGML template files (*.tmpl) are like normal SGML files, except that
they can contain escape sequences where extracted documentation should
be inserted.
!E<filename> is replaced by the documentation, in <filename>, for
functions that are exported using EXPORT_SYMBOL: the function list is
collected from files listed in Documentation/DocBook/Makefile.
!I<filename> is replaced by the documentation for functions that are
_not_ exported using EXPORT_SYMBOL.
!F<filename> <function [functions...]> is replaced by the
documentation, in <filename>, for the functions listed.
Tim.
*/ <twaugh@redhat.com>
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