doctools::toc - Holding tables of contents
package require doctools::toc ?2?
package require Tcl 8.4
package require doctools::toc::structure
package require struct::tree
package require snit
::doctools::toc objectName
objectName method ?arg arg ...?
objectName destroy
objectName + reference id label
docid desc
objectName + division id label
?docid?
objectName remove id
objectName up id
objectName next id
objectName prev id
objectName child id label
?...?
objectName element ?...?
objectName children id
objectName type id
objectName full-label id
objectName elabel id ?newlabel?
objectName description id
?newdesc?
objectName document id ?newdocid?
objectName title
objectName title text
objectName label
objectName label text
objectName importer
objectName importer object
objectName exporter
objectName exporter object
objectName deserialize = data
?format?
objectName deserialize += data
?format?
objectName serialize ?format?
This package provides a class to contain and programmatically
manipulate tables of contents.
This is one of the three public pillars the management of tables
of contents resides on. The other two pillars are
- [1]
- Exporting tables of contents, and
- [2]
- Importing tables of contents
For information about the Concepts of tables of contents,
and their parts, see the same-named section. For information about the data
structure which is used to encode tables of contents as values see the
section ToC serialization format. This is the only format directly
known to this class. Conversions from and to any other format are handled by
export and import manager objects. These may be attached to a container, but
do not have to be, it is merely a convenience.
- [1]
- A table of contents consists of a (possibly empty) list of
elements.
- [2]
- Each element in the list is identified by its label.
- [3]
- Each element is either a reference, or a division.
- [4]
- Each reference has an associated document, identified by a symbolic id,
and a textual description.
- [5]
- Each division may have an associated document, identified by a symbolic
id.
- [6]
- Each division consists consists of a (possibly empty) list of
elements, with each element following the rules as specified in
item 2 and above.
A few notes
- [1]
- The above rules span up a tree of elements, with references as the leaf
nodes, and divisions as the inner nodes, and each element representing an
entry in the whole table of contents.
- [2]
- The identifying labels of any element E are unique within their division
(or toc), and the full label of any element E is the list of labels for
all nodes on the unique path from the root of the tree to E, including
E.
- ::doctools::toc objectName
- This command creates a new container object with an associated Tcl command
whose name is objectName. This object command is explained
in full detail in the sections Object command and Object
methods. The object command will be created under the current
namespace if the objectName is not fully qualified, and in the
specified namespace otherwise.
All objects created by the ::doctools::toc command have the
following general form:
- objectName
method ?arg arg ...?
- The method method and its arg'uments determine the exact
behavior of the command. See section Object methods for the
detailed specifications.
- objectName
destroy
- This method destroys the object it is invoked for.
- objectName
+ reference id label docid desc
- This method adds a new reference element to the table of contents, under
the element specified via its handle id. This parent element has to
be a division element, or the root. An error is thrown otherwise. The new
element will be externally identified by its label, which has to be
be unique within the parent element. An error is thrown otherwise.
As a reference element it will refer to a document identified
by the symbolic docid. This reference must not be the empty
string, an error is thrown otherwise. Beyond the label the element also
has a longer descriptive string, supplied via desc.
The result of the method is the handle (id) of the new
element.
- objectName
+ division id label ?docid?
- This method adds a new division element to the table of contents, under
the element specified via its handle id. This parent element has to
be a division element, or the root. An error is thrown otherwise. The new
element will be externally identified by its label, which has to be
be unique within the parent element. An error is thrown otherwise.
As a division element it is can refer to a document,
identified by the symbolic docid, but may choose not to.
The result of the method is the handle (id) of the new
element.
- objectName
remove id
- This method removes the element identified by the handle id from
the table of contents. If the element is a division all of its children,
if any, are removed as well. The root element/division of the table of
contents cannot be removed however, only its children.
The result of the method is the empty string.
- objectName
up id
- This method returns the handle of the parent for the element identified by
its handle id, or the empty string if id refered to the root
element.
- objectName
next id
- This method returns the handle of the right sibling for the element
identified by its handle id, or the handle of the parent if the
element has no right sibling, or the empty string if id refered to
the root element.
- objectName
prev id
- This method returns the handle of the left sibling for the element
identified by its handle id, or the handle of the parent if the
element has no left sibling, or the empty string if id refered to
the root element.
- objectName
child id label ?...?
- This method returns the handle of a child of the element identified by its
handle id. The child itself is identified by a series of
labels.
- objectName
element ?...?
- This method returns the handle of the element identified by a series of
labels, starting from the root of the table of contents. The series of
labels is allowed to be empty, in which case the handle of the root
element is returned.
- objectName
children id
- This method returns a list containing the handles of all children of the
element identified by the handle id, from first to last, in that
order.
- objectName
type id
- This method returns the type of the element, either reference, or
division.
- objectName
full-label id
- This method is the complement of the method element, converting the
handle id of an element into a list of labels full identifying the
element within the whole table of contents.
- objectName
elabel id ?newlabel?
- This method queries and/or changes the label of the element identified by
the handle id. If the argument newlabel is present then the
label is changed to that value. Regardless of this, the result of the
method is the current value of the label.
If the label is changed the new label has to be unique within
the containing division, or an error is thrown.
Further, of the id refers to the root element of the
table of contents, then using this method is equivalent to using the
method label, i.e. it is accessing the global label for the whole
table.
- objectName
description id ?newdesc?
- This method queries and/or changes the description of the element
identified by the handle id. If the argument newdesc is
present then the description is changed to that value. Regardless of this,
the result of the method is the current value of the description.
The element this method operates on has to be a reference
element, or an error will be thrown.
- objectName
document id ?newdocid?
- This method queries and/or changes the document reference of the element
identified by the handle id. If the argument newdocid is
present then the description is changed to that value. Regardless of this,
the result of the method is the current value of the document reference.
Setting the reference to the empty string means unsetting it,
and is allowed only for division elements. Conversely, if the result is
the empty string then the element has no document reference, and this
can happen only for division elements.
- objectName
title
- Returns the currently defined title of the table of contents.
- objectName
title text
- Sets the title of the table of contents to text, and returns it as
the result of the command.
- objectName
label
- Returns the currently defined label of the table of contents.
- objectName
label text
- Sets the label of the table of contents to text, and returns it as
the result of the command.
- objectName
importer
- Returns the import manager object currently attached to the container, if
any.
- objectName
importer object
- Attaches the object as import manager to the container, and returns
it as the result of the command. Note that the object is not
put into ownership of the container. I.e., destruction of the container
will not destroy the object.
It is expected that object provides a method named
import text which takes a text and a format name, and returns the
canonical serialization of the table of contents contained in the text,
assuming the given format.
- objectName
exporter
- Returns the export manager object currently attached to the container, if
any.
- objectName
exporter object
- Attaches the object as export manager to the container, and returns
it as the result of the command. Note that the object is not
put into ownership of the container. I.e., destruction of the container
will not destroy the object.
It is expected that object provides a method named
export object which takes the container and a format name, and
returns a text encoding table of contents stored in the container, in
the given format. It is further expected that the object will use
the container's method serialize to obtain the serialization of
the table of contents from which to generate the text.
- objectName
deserialize = data ?format?
- This method replaces the contents of the table object with the table
contained in the data. If no format was specified it is
assumed to be the regular serialization of a table of contents.
Otherwise the object will use the attached import manager to
convert the data from the specified format to a serialization it can
handle. In that case an error will be thrown if the container has no
import manager attached to it.
The result of the method is the empty string.
- objectName
deserialize += data ?format?
- This method behaves like deserialize = in its essentials, except
that it merges the table of contents in the data to its contents
instead of replacing it. The method will throw an error if merging is not
possible, i.e. would produce an invalid table. The existing content is
left unchanged in that case.
The result of the method is the empty string.
- objectName
serialize ?format?
- This method returns the table of contents contained in the object. If no
format is not specified the returned result is the canonical
serialization of its contents.
Otherwise the object will use the attached export manager to
convert the data to the specified format. In that case an error will be
thrown if the container has no export manager attached to it.
Here we specify the format used by the doctools v2 packages to
serialize tables of contents as immutable values for transport, comparison,
etc.
We distinguish between regular and canonical
serializations. While a table of contents may have more than one regular
serialization only exactly one of them will be canonical.
- regular
serialization
- [1]
- The serialization of any table of contents is a nested Tcl
dictionary.
- [2]
- This dictionary holds a single key, doctools::toc, and its value.
This value holds the contents of the table of contents.
- [3]
- The contents of the table of contents are a Tcl dictionary holding the
title of the table of contents, a label, and its elements. The relevant
keys and their values are
- title
- The value is a string containing the title of the table of contents.
- label
- The value is a string containing a label for the table of contents.
- items
- The value is a Tcl list holding the elements of the table, in the order
they are to be shown.
Each element is a Tcl list holding the type of the item, and
its description, in this order. An alternative description would be that
it is a Tcl dictionary holding a single key, the item type, mapped to
the item description.
The two legal item types and their descriptions are
- reference
- This item describes a single entry in the table of contents, referencing a
single document. To this end its value is a Tcl dictionary containing an
id for the referenced document, a label, and a longer textual description
which can be associated with the entry. The relevant keys and their values
are
- id
- The value is a string containing the id of the document associated with
the entry.
- label
- The value is a string containing a label for this entry. This string also
identifies the entry, and no two entries (references and divisions) in the
containing list are allowed to have the same label.
- desc
- The value is a string containing a longer description for this entry.
- division
- This item describes a group of entries in the table of contents, inducing
a hierarchy of entries. To this end its value is a Tcl dictionary
containing a label for the group, an optional id to a document for the
whole group, and the list of entries in the group. The relevant keys and
their values are
- id
- The value is a string containing the id of the document associated with
the whole group. This key is optional.
- label
- The value is a string containing a label for the group. This string also
identifies the entry, and no two entries (references and divisions) in the
containing list are allowed to have the same label.
- items
- The value is a Tcl list holding the elements of the group, in the order
they are to be shown. This list has the same structure as the value for
the keyword items used to describe the whole table of contents, see
above. This closes the recusrive definition of the structure, with
divisions holding the same type of elements as the whole table of
contents, including other divisions.
- canonical
serialization
- The canonical serialization of a table of contents has the format as
specified in the previous item, and then additionally satisfies the
constraints below, which make it unique among all the possible
serializations of this table of contents.
- [1]
- The keys found in all the nested Tcl dictionaries are sorted in ascending
dictionary order, as generated by Tcl's builtin command lsort
-increasing -dict.
This document, and the package it describes, will undoubtedly
contain bugs and other problems. Please report such in the category
doctools of the Tcllib SF Trackers
[http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=12883]. Please also report any
ideas for enhancements you may have for either package and/or
documentation.
HTML, TMML, conversion, doctoc markup, documentation, formatting,
generation, json, latex, markup, nroff, parsing, plugin, reference, table,
table of contents, tcler's wiki, text, wiki
Copyright (c) 2009 Andreas Kupries <andreas_kupries@users.sourceforge.net>