ADoc

Extract Autodocs from source code

Edition 0.9beta for Version 1.01

December 7, 2024

Tobias Ferber

Copyright © 1995 by Tobias Ferber, All Rights Reserved.



Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved by the author.


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GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE

@input gpl.texinfo


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Contributors


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1 Introduction

The ADOC scanner creates Autodocs or Texinfo source from source code. It is an enhanced version of Bill Koesters Autodoc program as of 21-Aug-89 which is part of C=ommodore’s Native Developer Kit (NDK).

ADOC scans the input files for a special kind of comments: the autodoc comments. Autodoc comments start at the begining of a line with a string of the form

?***??* lib/fun …

The ‘?’ stands for characters which are ignored, they must however be “black”, i.e. they must not be tabs or spaces. The ‘*’ ist ment literally, so in these places there must be an asterisk. ‘lib/fun’ is the identifier which specifies the library and the name of the function described in the following comment. ‘lib’ and ‘fun’ consist of upper- and/or lower case letters, decimal digits, a dash ‘-’ and/or the underscore ‘_’. The rest of the line is ignored.

E.g.: A standard C language autodoc comment begins like this:

/****** mylib/myfun **************************

The following lines make up the function description, a sequence of one or more sections. A section begins with the section heading, a line with only — and at least two — capital letters. Some common section headings are

NAME, SYNOPSIS, FUNCTION, INPUTS, RESULT, …

Each line in the function description must be prefixed with a black character followed by at least one white space or the end of the line. An autodoc comment ends with a line beginning with a black character followed by at least two asterisks ‘*’. An example template comment can be found at the end of this document. See section Style Guide, for further details.


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2 Options

ADOC reads the command line from left to right and collects filenames and options before it starts processing your input. The filenames are queued and processed in the same order as they appear in the command line. The list-file option ‘@’ is replaced by the contents of the list file read in top-down order. If no input files are specified ADOC will read from the standard input stream.


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2.1 Options for the Autodoc output

--autodoc

ADOC creates an autodoc file. (This is the default)

--no-form-feeds

Usually the functions in ADOCs autodoc output are seperated by form feeds (^L). With this switch ADOC omits them. (This switch is a no-op in ‘--texinfo’ mode).

--table-of-contents

A table of contents is written to the output followed by the autodoc functions. Functions and toc-entries are always in the same order, so ‘--preserve-order’ also affects the table of contents. (This switch is a no-op in ‘--texinfo’ mode).

--preserve-order

With this option ADOC does not sort the functions before writing the autodoc output. (This switch is ignored in ‘--texinfo’ mode).


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2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output

--stdin

This switch behaves like a filename for the standard input stream. Using it does not only force reading from stdin but you can also specify the files to read before and after the standard input.

--output-file filename

This option allows you to specify a filename for ADOC’s output. If this option is ommited ADOC will write to the standard output stream.

--error-file filename

Like ‘--output-file’ this option allows you to redirect ADOC’s output. The difference between the two is that this option redirects warnings and error messages from stderr into the file filename.

--flip-slashes

This option converts ‘\*’ to ‘/*’ and ‘*\’ to ‘*/’. This allows C language comments in the autodocs without nesting comments in the source code.

The name of the option might give you the idea of a general conversion of backslashes into slashes. This is however incorrect. The character on the left or right of the ‘\’ must be an asterisk (‘*’). Please note that ‘*\*’ is transformed into ‘*/*’.

--tabs-to-spaces

Tabs in the input are turned into spaces with a default tab size of 8. This is the default in ‘--texinfo’ mode.

--tabsize number

The tab size is changed to number. (default is ‘--tabsize 8’). This option implies ‘--tabs-to-spaces’.

--line-length number

Function headers in the autodoc output will be number columns wide. (default is ‘--line-length 80’). (This option has no influence on ADOC’s Texinfo output).

--internal

ADOC will only read comments with an ‘i’ in column 5 or 6. (same as ‘--yank-type "i"’).

--yank-type type

ADOC will only read comments which have in column 5 or 6 one of the chatacters in the type string.

--indented-comments

The autodoc comments normally have to start at column 1, i.e.: they must not be indented. This option allows indented comments, but it does not check whether or not the indentation of all comment lines is equal or not.

Additionally, if the indentation is not a multiple of ADOC’s tab size, the conversion of <TAB> characters into spaces might lead to wrong results. This is due to the fact that ADOC does not remember the columnar position of each body text line but silently assumes that they all start at a tab stop column.

In general it is not recommended to make use of <TAB>s in indented comments. If you really insist on them you can pipe these files through expand and ADOC’s output through unexpand:

$ cat *.c | expand -t8 | adoc -I | unexpand -t8 -a > adoc.out
--reindent-bodytext number

This option changes the indentation of lines in the body text of all functions to number spaces. If number is 0 then the current indentation is removed which is default in ‘--texinfo’ mode.

In order to remove the current indentation ADOC cuts a columnar block beginning at column 1 from the function body. The width of this block is the maximum width without hurting any text.

There is one more thing to mention: This option automatically converts all <TAB> characters into the apropriate number of spaces. You want this because the new indentation might destroy your textual layout otherwise. The conversion is performed before the removal of the indentation.

If you want to change the body text indentation via ‘--reindent-bodytext’ but insist on having <TAB> characters instead of spaces then you have to pipe the ADOC output through unexpand:

$ adoc -I *.c | unexpand -t8 -a > adoc.out
--preserve-indentation

This option avoids reindentation of the body text (e.g.: in ‘--texinfo’ mode where ‘--reindent-bodytext 0’ is ADOC’s default).

--sort-entries

This option forces sorting of the functions which is default in both ‘--autodoc’ and ‘--texinfo’ mode.

-Mmacro value

Defines a value value for a macro macro which is expanded when writing the body text of a function. (e.g.: the above mentioned conversions of for ‘--flip-slashes’ and ‘--texinfo’ are implemented in this manner).

Note that there must not be a space between ‘-M’ and the name (i.e. the source string) of the macro.

-U macro

Undefines a macro macro no matter whether macro had been defined with ‘-D’ or ‘-M’ or not at all.


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2.3 Options for Texinfo output

--texinfo

Write texinfo source instead of autodocs. This switch implies ‘--tabs-to-spaces’. ‘--preserve-order’ and ‘--no-form-feeds’ are ignored. The functions in the texinfo output are always sorted, tabs are always expanded and there will be no form feeds.

Some conversions will be performed on your autodoc body text, especially:

@  ->  @@
{  ->  @{
}  ->  @}
--project
--revision
--edition
--copyright
--author

ADOC’s texinfo header reserves these four macros. Their value defaults to their name. ‘--project’ is not only used on the title page but also as the name for the ‘.info’ or ‘.guide’ file.

These options actually define the macros PROJECT, EDTITION, REVISION, COPYRIGHT and AUTHOR as if they had been defined via ‘-D’.

--no-references

In ‘--texinfo’ mode, ADOC tries to find matching nodes for the identifiers in the SEE ALSO section. You can however force ADOC to write this section as it is by giving this switch.

Best results can be obtained by writing one reference per line in the same ‘lib/fun’ format as in the header line of the referenced function. ADOC will however try to prepend the current functions library name to the identifiers and removes parens, commata, white spaces and newline characters in order to find the referenced ‘lib/fun’ header.

--parse-references

This option prints one "See ..." sentence containing all references from the SEE ALSO section. No itemization is used.

The name of this option might insinuate the necessity of passing it together with other options which need to analyze the SEE ALSO section. This is however incorrect. The name of this option is somehow an archaic requilict from those times where ADOC learned to look closer at it’s input. It could also be called ‘--make-one-sentence-of-references’ or something similar.

--itemize-references

ADOC puts the parsed references as an @item into an @itemize environment. (This is default in ‘--texinfo’ mode).

Parsing the references is done automatically, even if you guess that you need the ‘--parse-references’ option. This not a good guess. Perhaps you should better look at the above description of this option.

--no-grouping

ADOC will not make use of texinfo’s grouping feature. (This is the default).

--group-sections

The section body (following the title keyword) will be grouped into a @group@end group environment in order to prevent TeX from breaking the page inside a section. The current implementation of texinfo does not allow placing the section keyword into the @group as well:

! @group invalid in context where filling is enabled.
--body-environment string

This option allows you to specify the texinfo environment into which the section body text will be placed. The internal default is ‘--body-environment smallexample’ and so each section body is placed into an environment of the form

@smallexample
  <body text>
@end smallexample

If ‘--group-sections’ is specified, then this @group is placed into the given environment like this:

@smallexample
@group
  <body text>
@end group
@end smallexample

Please note that this environment is not used within parsed references in the SEE ALSO section.

--texi-funtable

This switch tells the texinfo code generator to place a function into a @table environment with each section keyword as a @b{}old @item. This might however look ugly and lead to an immense amount of overfull \hbox{}es because TeX will then indent the following body text twice (for the @item and for the @example) and so ADOC’s default is to write a section keyword like an ordinary, indented, @b{}old paragraph.

--form-feeds

With this option a page break is forced by inserting a @page command in front of each function description. An exception is the first function of a library which always begins on the same page as the library @chapter.

--texi-header-file filename

ADOC comes up with a minimal header and titlepage when writing texinfo output. This option allows you to replace ADOC’s internal header with the contents of filename.

Note that a macro expansion of macros defined via ‘-D’ will be performed on the contents of filename.

--no-texi-header

This option forces ADOC to ommit writing a texinfo header and a title page. Texinfo output begins with the (Top) @menu.

--no-texi-index

No function index and no table of contents is used in the texinfo file.

-Dmacro value

Defines a value value for a macro macro which is expanded when writing the texinfo header. These definitions are not performed on the body text of a function description like those defined via ‘-M’.

Note that there must not be a space between ‘-D’ and the name of the macro.


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2.4 Miscellaneous Options

--no-output
--dry-run

ADOC only reads your input (and eventually prints warnings). No output will be written.

--silent

ADOC will behave more briefly with this option.

--help

A list of options and a short description will be printed to the standard output stream.

If your terminal is limited to 80 columns then you can use

-h0

To print only the usage:... line

-h1

To print only the “short” options (those with one dash ‘-’).

-h2

To print only the “long” options (those with two dashes ‘--’).

--version

Author and version information will be printed.


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2.5 Influencing ADOC’s pedanticness

--no-warnings

ADOC will not print any warnings.

--check-keywords

ADOC will complain about section title keywords which are not in the example below.

--check-presence

ADOC will complain if one of the keywords in the example below is missing in a function description.

--pedantic

ADOC will complain about almost everything.


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3 Style Guide

This chapter is under development.


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3.1 How ADOC reads your input

ADOC scanns your input for autodoc comments. These comments begin on the leftmost column in a new line which most likely looks like one of those:

/****** mylib/myfun ******

This is the beginning of a standard C or Rexx Language autodoc comment for the function myfun in the library or module mylib.

;****** mylib/myfun ******
******* mylib/myfun ******

Most assemblers use a semicolon (‘;’) or an asterisk (‘*’) to begin a remark.

#****** mylib/myfun ******

This type is known in Makefiles and shell scripts.

%****** mylib/myfun ******

For autodoc comments in TeX or METAFONT we need the percent sign (‘%’).

When ADOC encounters the beginning of an autodoc comment it starts collecting section headings and body text lines and saves them for later use in the code generator.

The lines inside autodoc comments must be prefixed by a black character. This character is made invisible in the output. To be more precise: ADOC removes the black character in column 1 if the following character is a <TAB> or a newline character but it replaces it by a space if the following character is a space character.

Each line which contains entirely capitalized letters is assumed to be a section heading unless it contains only one single upper case character.

The indentation of section headings and body text lines does not matter. You should however use an indentation of 3 spaces for a section heading and 7 spaces for body text lines. Note that ADOC allows you to adjust the indentation for the output via the ‘--reindent-bodytext’ option.


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3.2 Example comment

Here is a sample “correct” autodoc comment taken from the ‘autodoc.style’ which is part of Commodore’s Native Developer Kit (NDK):

/****** financial.library/StealMoney ***************************************
*
*  NAME
*     StealMoney -- Steal money from the Federal Reserve Bank. (V77)
*
*  SYNOPSIS
*     error = StealMoney( userName,amount,destAccount,falseTrail )
*     D0,Z                D0       D1.W    A0         [A1]
*
*     BYTE StealMoney
*          ( STRPTR,UWORD,struct AccountSpec *,struct falseTrail *);
*
*  FUNCTION
*     Transfer money from the Federal Reserve Bank into the specified
*     interest-earning checking account.  No records of the transaction
*     will be retained.
*
*  INPUTS
*     userName      - name to make the transaction under.
*                     Popular favorites include "Ronald Reagan"
*                     and "Mohamar Quadaffi".
*     amount        - Number of dollars to transfer (in thousands).
*     destAccount   - A filled-in AccountSpec structure detailing the
*                     destination account (see financial/accounts.h).
*                     If NULL, a second Great Depression will be triggered.
*     falseTrail    - If the DA_FALSETRAIL bit is set in the destAccount,
*                     a falseTrail structure must be provided.
*
*  RESULT
*     error - zero for success, else an error code is returned (see
*             financial/errors.h).  The Z condition code is guaranteed.
*
*  EXAMPLE
*     Federal regulations prohibit a demonstration of this function.
*
*  NOTES
*     Do not run on Tuesdays!
*
*  BUGS
*     Before V88, this function would occasionally print the address and
*     home phone number of the caller on local police 976 terminals.
*     We are confident that this problem has been resolved.
*
*  SEE ALSO
*     CreateAccountSpec(),security.device/SCMD_DESTROY_EVIDENCE,
*     financial/misc.h
*
****************************************************************************
*
*  Private notes:
*     A4=stringbean
*     A3=dogbreath
*  Must preserve A1 for taxshelter.library
*/

There are three spaces from the ‘*’ to the start of each HEADING. There is one tab after the ‘*’ before the start of the body text. No other tabs are used.

Note that ADOC also allows the use of spaces to indent body text lines. You can even mix tabs and spaces! (We recommend to avoid <TAB> characters.)


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3.3 General style notes

For further guidelines refer to ‘autodoc.style’ — Commodore’s autodoc style guide which is part of the Native Developer Kit (NDK).


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4 Bugs


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Index

The index is under development.

Jump to:   -  
A   B   C   E   O   P   S   T  
Index Entry  Section

-
–author 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–autodoc 2.1 Options for the Autodoc output
–body-environment 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–check-keywords 2.5 Influencing ADOC’s pedanticness
–check-presence 2.5 Influencing ADOC’s pedanticness
–copyright 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
-D 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–dry-run 2.4 Miscellaneous Options
–edition 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–error-file 2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output
–flip-slashes 2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output
–form-feeds 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–group-sections 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–help 2.4 Miscellaneous Options
–indented-comments 2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output
–internal 2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output
–itemize-references 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–line-length 2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output
-M 2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output
–no-form-feeds 2.1 Options for the Autodoc output
–no-grouping 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–no-output 2.4 Miscellaneous Options
–no-references 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–no-texi-header 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–no-texi-index 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–no-warnings 2.5 Influencing ADOC’s pedanticness
–output-file 2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output
–parse-references 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–pedantic 2.5 Influencing ADOC’s pedanticness
–preserve-indentation 2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output
–preserve-order 2.1 Options for the Autodoc output
–project 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–reindent-bodytext 2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output
–revision 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–silent 2.4 Miscellaneous Options
–sort-entries 2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output
–stdin 2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output
–table-of-contents 2.1 Options for the Autodoc output
–tabs-to-spaces 2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output
–tabsize 2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output
–texi-funtable 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–texi-header-file 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
–texinfo 2.3 Options for Texinfo output
-U 2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output
–version 2.4 Miscellaneous Options
–yank-type 2.2 Options for Autodoc and Texinfo output

A
Author Contributors
Autodoc comments 1 Introduction
Autodocs 1 Introduction

B
Bugs 4 Bugs

C
Command line 2 Options
Compatibility 4 Bugs
Contributors Contributors

E
Example 3 Style Guide

O
Options 2 Options

P
Problems 4 Bugs

S
Style Guide 3 Style Guide
Switchs 2 Options

T
Template comment 3 Style Guide

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A   B   C   E   O   P   S   T  

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