Version 15 of mkdoc::mkdoc

Updated 2022-02-11 05:59:41 by DDG

NAME

mkdoc::mkdoc extracts Markdown documentation from source code files written programming languages like Tcl, Python, R, C++, ...

DESCRIPTION

Source code documentation tool using Markdown as markup languages directly inside the code. Can be installed as a single file command line application or as a normal Tcl package. It support programming languages like Python, Tcl, Perl. Markdown Syntax is just prefixed with a #'. Also languages with multi line comments like C++ are supported, just use inside the /* ... */ code blocks as well the #' prefix. A good example for the documentation is mkdoc::mkdoc own manual page.

LINKS

DETAILS

Download mkdoc-0.6.bin (see above), rename it to mkdoc, make it executable and move this file to a folder belonging to your PATH variable. Thereafter extract embedded documentation with the command line application on the terminal like this:

mkdoc inputfile outputfile

For example to extract mkdoc's own documentation you could use:

mkdoc mkdoc.tcl mkdoc.html

Or if you would like to have pdf output and if you have pandoc installed:

mkdoc mkdoc.tcl mkdoc.md --pandoc
pandoc mkdoc.md -o mkdoc.pdf

If you do this pdf conversion, you might add before the pandoc conversion the YAML header again as this header is not Markdown syntax and might not display correctly in Markdown viewers.

Standalone executable

There is as well a standalone executable of the package which contains added on top of the file the required packages from tcllib. To install this executable just move it to your personal bin folder or other folders which are in your path, for example:

===== mv mkdoc-0.6.bin ~/bin/mkdoc chmod 755 ~/bin/mkdoc =====

More explanations are here: https://github.com/mittelmark/DGTcl/tree/master/bin

CHANGES

  • 2019-11-19: 0.1 initial version
  • 2019-11-28: 0.2 direct conversion of markdown into html, starkit version, docu fixes
  • 2020-02-26: 0.3 -css option for custom stylesheets, standalone application now with embedded Markdown package
  • 2020-11-10: 0.4 --run command line option to execute the code in the EXAMPLE section
  • 2022-02-11: 0.6.0 improved YAML support, better default css, terminal usage message improved, building standalone executable now with tpack

SEE ALSO

DISCUSSION

Please discuss here.

DDG 2020-02-26: mkdoc is in it's use similar to Ruff! which also uses Markdown for documentation. Whereas Ruff! uses Tcl introspection facilities mkdoc requires to write the documentation without this help. That's might be a disadvantage, but at the same time mkdoc can be used not only to write documentation for Tcl, but as well for Perl, Python, C, C++ etc.

So to document a procedure using Ruff! you have to write:

proc character_at {text {pos 0}} {
     # Get the character from a string.
     #  text - Text string.
     #  pos  - Character position. 
     # The command will treat negative values of $pos as offset from
     # the end of the string.
     #
     # Returns the character at index $pos in string $text.
     ...
}

In contrast you write using mkdoc (stars are just for **bold** and *italic*), the greater sign is for indenting lines after the procedure name:

#' **character_at** *text ?pos 0?*
proc character_at {text {pos 0}} {
     #'
     #' > Get the character from a string.
     #'
     #' > - *text* - Text string.
     #'   - *pos*  - Character position, default: 0. 
     #'
     #' > The command will treat negative values of $pos as offset from
     #' the end of the string.
     #'
     #' > Returns the character at index $pos in string $text.
     ...
}

As said above, the mkdoc approach works as well for other programming languages.

DDG - 2020-11-10: Moved project to Github, updated to version 0.4 adding a --run argument to extract and execute the inline code in the example section.

DDG - 2022-02-11: Did some code clean up, building the standalone application now with tpack, improved help message in the terminal

Category Documentation