path: root/lib/rdoc/README

= RDOC - Ruby Documentation System

This package contains Rdoc and SimpleMarkup. Rdoc is an application
that produces documentation for one or more Ruby source files. We work
similarly to JavaDoc, parsing the source, and extracting the
definition for classes, modules, and methods (along with includes and
requires).  We associate with these optional documentation contained
in the immediately preceding comment block, and then render the result
using a pluggable output formatter. (Currently, HTML is the only
supported format. Markup is a library that converts plain text into
various output formats. The Markup library is used to interpret the
comment blocks that Rdoc uses to document methods, classes, and so on.

This library contains two packages, rdoc itself and a text markup
library, 'markup'. 

== Roadmap

* If you want to use Rdoc to create documentation for your Ruby source
  files, read on.
* If you want to include extensions written in C, see rdoc/parsers/parse_c.rb.
* For information on the various markups available in comment
  blocks, see markup/simple_markup.rb.
* If you want to drive Rdoc programatically, see RDoc::RDoc.
* If you want to use the library to format text blocks into HTML,
  have a look at SM::SimpleMarkup.
* If you want to try writing your own HTML output template, see
  RDoc::Page.

== Summary

Once installed, you can create documentation using the 'rdoc' command
(the command is 'rdoc.bat' under Windows)

  % rdoc [options]  [names...]

Type "rdoc --help" for an up-to-date option summary.

A typical use might be to generate documentation for a package of Ruby
source (such as rdoc itself). 

  % rdoc

This command generates documentation for all the Ruby and C source
files in and below the current directory. These will be stored in a
documentation tree starting in the subdirectory 'doc'.

You can make this slightly more useful for your readers by having the
index page contain the documentation for the primary file. In our
case, we could type

  % rdoc --main rdoc/rdoc.rb

You'll find information on the various formatting tricks you can use
in comment blocks in the documentation this generates.

RDoc uses file extensions to determine how to process each file. File
names ending <tt>.rb</tt> and <tt>.rbw</tt> are assumed to be Ruby
source. Files ending <tt>.c</tt> are parsed as C files. All other
files are assumed to contain just SimpleMarkup-style markup (with or
without leading '#' comment markers). If directory names are passed to
RDoc, they are scanned recursively for C and Ruby source files only.

== Credits

* The Ruby parser in rdoc/parse.rb is based heavily on the outstanding
  work of Keiju ISHITSUKA of Nippon Rational Inc, who produced the Ruby
  parser for irb and the rtags package.

* Code to diagram classes and modules was written by Sergey A Yanovitsky
  (Jah) of Enticla. 

* Charset patch from MoonWolf.

* Rich Kilmer wrote the kilmer.rb output template.

* Dan Brickley led the design of the RDF format.

== License

RDoc is Copyright (c) 2001-2003 Dave Thomas, The Pragmatic Programmers.  It
is free software, and may be redistributed under the terms specified
in the README file of the Ruby distribution.

= Usage

RDoc is invoked from the command line using:

   % rdoc <options> [name...]

Files are parsed, and the information they contain collected, before
any output is produced. This allows cross references between all files
to be resolved. If a name is a directory, it is traversed. If no
names are specified, all Ruby files in the current directory (and
subdirectories) are processed.

Options are:

[<tt>--accessor</tt> <i>name[,name...]</i>]
    specifies the name(s) of additional methods that should be treated
    as if they were <tt>attr_</tt><i>xxx</i> methods. Specifying
    "--accessor db_opt" means lines such as

         db_opt :name, :age
  
    will get parsed and displayed in the documentation. Each name may have an
    optional "=flagtext" appended, in which case the given flagtext will appear
    where (for example) the 'rw' appears for attr_accessor.

[<tt>--all</tt>]
    include protected and private methods in the output (by default
    only public methods are included)

[<tt>--charset</tt> _charset_]
    Set the character set for the generated HTML.

[<tt>--diagram</tt>]
    include diagrams showing modules and classes.  This is currently
    an experimental feature, and may not be supported by all output
    templates. You need dot V1.8.6 or later to use the --diagram
    option correctly (http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/).

[<tt>--exclude</tt> <i>pattern</i>]
    exclude files and directories matching this pattern from processing

[<tt>--extension</tt> <i>new=old</i>]
    treat files ending <i>.new</i> as if they ended
    <i>.old</i>. Saying '--extension cgi=rb' causes RDoc to treat .cgi
    files as Ruby source.

[<tt>fileboxes</tt>]
    Classes are put in boxes which represents files, where these
    classes reside. Classes shared between more than one file are
    shown with list of files that sharing them.  Silently discarded if
    --diagram is not given Experimental.

[<tt>--fmt</tt> _fmt_]
    generate output in a particular format.

[<tt>--help</tt>]
    generate a usage summary.

[<tt>--help-output</tt>]
    explain the various output options.

[<tt>--image-format</tt> <i>gif/png/jpg/jpeg</i>]
    sets output image format for diagrams. Can be png, gif, jpeg,
    jpg. If this option is omitted, png is used. Requires --diagram.

[<tt>--include</tt> <i>dir,...</i>]
    specify one or more directories to be searched when satisfying
    :+include+: directives. Multiple <tt>--include</tt> options may be
    given. The directory containing the file currently being processed
    is always searched.

[<tt>--inline-source</tt>]
    By default, the source code of methods is shown in a popup. With
    this option, it's displayed inline.

[<tt>line-numbers</tt>]
    include line numbers in the source code

[<tt>--main</tt> _name_]
    the class of module _name_ will appear on the index page. If you
    want to set a particular file as a main page (a README, for
    example) simply specifiy its name as the first on the command
    line.

[<tt>--merge</tt>]
    when generating _ri_ output, if classes being processed already
    exist in the destination directory, merge in the current details
    rather than overwrite them.

[<tt>--one-file</tt>]
    place all the output into a single file

[<tt>--op</tt> _dir_]
    set the output directory to _dir_ (the default is the directory
    "doc")

[<tt>--op-name</tt> _name_]
    set the name of the output. Has no effect for HTML.
    "doc")

[<tt>--opname</tt> _name_]
    set the output name (has no effect for HTML).

[<tt>--promiscuous</tt>]
    If a module or class is defined in more than one source file, and
    you click on a particular file's name in the top navigation pane,
    RDoc will normally only show you the inner classes and modules of
    that class that are defined in the particular file. Using this
    option makes it show all classes and modules defined in the class,
    regardless of the file they were defined in.

[<tt>--quiet</tt>]
    do not display progress messages

[<tt>--ri</tt>, <tt>--ri-site</tt>, _and_ <tt>--ri-system</tt>]
    generate output than can be read by the _ri_ command-line tool.
    By default --ri places its output in ~/.rdoc, --ri-site in
    $datadir/ri/<ver>/site, and --ri-system in
    $datadir/ri/<ver>/system. All can be overridden with a subsequent
    --op option. All default directories are in ri's default search
    path.

[<tt>--show-hash</tt>]
    A name of the form #name in a comment is a possible hyperlink to
    an instance method name. When displayed, the '#' is removed unless
    this option is specified

[<tt>--style</tt> <i>stylesheet url</i>]
    specifies the URL of an external stylesheet to use (rather than
    generating one of our own)

[<tt>tab-width</tt> _n_]
    set the width of tab characters (default 8)

[<tt>--template</tt> <i>name</i>]
    specify an alternate template to use when generating output (the
    default is 'standard'). This template should be in a directory
    accessible via $: as rdoc/generator/xxxx_template, where 'xxxx'
    depends on the output formatter.

[<tt>--version</tt>]
   display  RDoc's version

[<tt>--webcvs</tt> _url_]
    Specify a URL for linking to a web frontend to CVS. If the URL
    contains a '\%s', the name of the current file will be
    substituted; if the URL doesn't contain a '\%s', the filename will
    be appended to it.

= Example

A typical small Ruby program commented using RDoc might be as follows. You
can see the formatted result in EXAMPLE.rb and Anagram.

      :include: EXAMPLE.rb

= Markup

Comment blocks can be written fairly naturally, either using '#' on
successive lines of the comment, or by including the comment in 
an =begin/=end block. If you use the latter form, the =begin line
must be flagged with an RDoc tag:

  =begin rdoc
  Documentation to 
  be processed by RDoc.
  =end

Paragraphs are lines that share the left margin. Text indented past
this margin are formatted verbatim.

1. Lists are typed as indented paragraphs with:
   * a '*' or '-' (for bullet lists)
   * a digit followed by a period for 
     numbered lists
   * an upper or lower case letter followed
     by a period for alpha lists.

   For example, the input that produced the above paragraph looked like
       1. Lists are typed as indented 
          paragraphs with:
          * a '*' or '-' (for bullet lists)
          * a digit followed by a period for 
            numbered lists
          * an upper or lower case letter followed
            by a period for alpha lists.

2. Labeled lists (sometimes called description
   lists) are typed using square brackets for the label.
      [cat]   small domestic animal
      [+cat+] command to copy standard input

3. Labeled lists may also be produced by putting a double colon
   after the label. This sets the result in tabular form, so the
   descriptions all line up. This was used to create the 'author'
   block at the bottom of this description.
      cat::   small domestic animal
      +cat+:: command to copy standard input

   For both kinds of labeled lists, if the body text starts on the same
   line as the label, then the start of that text determines the block
   indent for the rest of the body. The text may also start on the line
   following the label, indented from the start of the label. This is
   often preferable if the label is long. Both the following are
   valid labeled list entries:

      <tt>--output</tt> <i>name [, name]</i>::
          specify the name of one or more output files. If multiple
          files are present, the first is used as the index.

      <tt>--quiet:</tt>:: do not output the names, sizes, byte counts,
                          index areas, or bit ratios of units as
                          they are processed.

4. Headings are entered using equals signs

      = Level One Heading
      == Level Two Heading
   and so on

5. Rules (horizontal lines) are entered using three or
   more hyphens.

6. Non-verbatim text can be marked up:

   _italic_::     \_word_ or \<em>text</em>
   *bold*::       \*word* or \<b>text</b>
   +typewriter+:: \+word+ or \<tt>text</tt>

   The first form only works around 'words', where a word is a
   sequence of upper and lower case letters and underscores. Putting a
   backslash before inline markup stops it being interpreted, which is
   how I created the table above:

     _italic_::     \_word_ or \<em>text</em>
     *bold*::       \*word* or \<b>text</b>
     +typewriter+:: \+word+ or \<tt>text</tt>

7. Names of classes, source files, and any method names
   containing an underscore or preceded by a hash
   character are automatically hyperlinked from
   comment text to their description. 

8. Hyperlinks to the web starting http:, mailto:, ftp:, or www. are
   recognized. An HTTP url that references an external image file is
   converted into an inline <IMG..>.  Hyperlinks starting 'link:' are
   assumed to refer to local files whose path is relative to the --op
   directory.

   Hyperlinks can also be of the form <tt>label</tt>[url], in which
   case the label is used in the displayed text, and <tt>url</tt> is
   used as the target. If <tt>label</tt> contains multiple words,
   put it in braces: <em>{multi word label}[</em>url<em>]</em>.
       
9. Method parameter lists are extracted and displayed with
   the method description. If a method calls +yield+, then
   the parameters passed to yield will also be displayed:

      def fred
        ...
        yield line, address

   This will get documented as

      fred() { |line, address| ... }

   You can override this using a comment containing 
   ':yields: ...' immediately after the method definition

      def fred      # :yields: index, position
        ...
        yield line, address

   which will get documented as

       fred() { |index, position| ... }


10. ':yields:' is an example of a documentation modifier. These appear
    immediately after the start of the document element they are modifying.
    Other modifiers include

    [<tt>:nodoc:</tt><i>[all]</i>]
         don't include this element in the documentation.  For classes
         and modules, the methods, aliases, constants, and attributes
         directly within the affected class or module will also be
         omitted.  By default, though, modules and classes within that
         class of module _will_ be documented. This is turned off by
         adding the +all+ modifier.

              module SM  #:nodoc:
                class Input
                end
              end
              module Markup #:nodoc: all
                class Output
                end
              end

         In the above code, only class <tt>SM::Input</tt> will be
         documented.

    [<tt>:doc:</tt>]
         force a method or attribute to be documented even if it
         wouldn't otherwise be. Useful if, for example, you want to
         include documentation of a particular private method.

    [<tt>:notnew:</tt>]
         only applicable to the +initialize+ instance method. Normally
         RDoc assumes that the documentation and parameters for
         #initialize are actually for the ::new method, and so fakes
         out a ::new for the class. THe :notnew: modifier stops
         this. Remember that #initialize is protected, so you won't
         see the documentation unless you use the -a command line
         option.


11. RDoc stops processing comments if it finds a comment
    line containing '<tt>#--</tt>'. This can be used to 
    separate external from internal comments, or 
    to stop a comment being associated with a method, 
    class, or module. Commenting can be turned back on with
    a line that starts '<tt>#++</tt>'.

        # Extract the age and calculate the
        # date-of-birth.
        #--
        # FIXME: fails if the birthday falls on
        # February 29th
        #++
        # The DOB is returned as a Time object.

        def get_dob(person)
           ...

12. Comment blocks can contain other directives:

    [<tt>:section: title</tt>]
        Starts a new section in the output. The title following
	<tt>:section:</tt> is used as the section heading, and the
	remainder of the comment containing the section is used as
	introductory text. Subsequent methods, aliases, attributes,
	and classes will be documented in this section. A :section:
	comment block may have one or more lines before the :section:
	directive. These will be removed, and any identical lines at
	the end of the block are also removed. This allows you to add
	visual cues such as

           # ----------------------------------------
	   # :section: My Section
	   # This is the section that I wrote.
	   # See it glisten in the noon-day sun.
           # ----------------------------------------

    [<tt>call-seq:</tt>]
        lines up to the next blank line in the comment are treated as
        the method's calling sequence, overriding the
        default parsing of method parameters and yield arguments.

    [<tt>:include:</tt><i>filename</i>] 
         include the contents of the named file at this point. The
         file will be searched for in the directories listed by
         the <tt>--include</tt> option, or in the current
         directory by default.  The contents of the file will be
         shifted to have the same indentation as the ':' at the
         start of the :include: directive.

    [<tt>:title:</tt><i>text</i>]
         Sets the title for the document. Equivalent to the --title command
         line parameter. (The command line parameter overrides any :title:
         directive in the source).

    [<tt>:enddoc:</tt>]
         Document nothing further at the current level.

    [<tt>:main:</tt><i>name</i>]
         Equivalent to the --main command line parameter.

    [<tt>:stopdoc: / :startdoc:</tt>]
         Stop and start adding new documentation elements to the
         current container. For example, if a class has a number of
         constants that you don't want to document, put a
         <tt>:stopdoc:</tt> before the first, and a
         <tt>:startdoc:</tt> after the last. If you don't specifiy a
         <tt>:startdoc:</tt> by the end of the container, disables
         documentation for the entire class or module.


---

See also markup/simple_markup.rb.

= Other stuff

Author::   Dave Thomas <dave@pragmaticprogrammer.com>
Requires:: Ruby 1.8.1 or later
License::  Copyright (c) 2001-2003 Dave Thomas.
           Released under the same license as Ruby.

== Warranty

This software is provided "as is" and without any express or
implied warranties, including, without limitation, the implied
warranties of merchantibility and fitness for a particular
purpose.