docstrip_util(n) Literate programming tool docstrip_util(n)


docstrip_util - Docstrip-related utilities

package require Tcl 8.4

package require docstrip::util ?1.2?

docstrip::util::ddt2man text

docstrip::util::guards subcmd text

docstrip::util::thefile filename ?option value ...?


The docstrip::util package is meant for collecting various utility procedures that may be useful for developers who make use of the docstrip package in some projects. It is separate from the main package to avoid overhead for end-users.

The ddt2man command reformats text from the general docstrip format to doctools ".man" format (Tcl Markup Language for Manpages). The different line types are treated as follows:
The '%' and '%%' prefixes are removed, the rest of the text is kept as it is.
These are kept as they are. (Effectively this means that they will count as comment lines after a comment line and as code lines after a code line.)
example_begin and example_end commands are placed at the beginning and end of every block of consecutive code lines. Brackets in a code line are converted to lb and rb commands.
These are processed as usual, so they do not show up in the result but every line in a verbatim block is treated as a code line.
These are treated as code lines, except that the actual guard is emphasised.

At the time of writing, no project has employed doctools markup in master source files, so experience of what works well is not available. A source file could however look as follows

   % [manpage_begin gcd n 1.0]
   % [moddesc {Greatest Common Divisor}]
   % [require gcd [opt 1.0]]
   % [description]
   %
   % [list_begin definitions]
   % [call [cmd gcd] [arg a] [arg b]]
   %   The [cmd gcd] procedure takes two arguments [arg a] and [arg b] which
   %   must be integers and returns their greatest common divisor.
   proc gcd {a b} {
   %   The first step is to take the absolute values of the arguments.
   %   This relieves us of having to worry about how signs will be treated
   %   by the remainder operation.
      set a [expr {abs($a)}]
      set b [expr {abs($b)}]
   %   The next line does all of Euclid's algorithm! We can make do
   %   without a temporary variable, since $a is substituted before the
   %   [lb]set a $b[rb] and thus continues to hold a reference to the
   %   "old" value of [var a].
      while {$b>0} { set b [expr { $a % [set a $b] }] }
   %   In Tcl 8.3 we might want to use [cmd set] instead of [cmd return]
   %   to get the slight advantage of byte-compilation.
   %<tcl83>  set a
   %<!tcl83>   return $a
   }
   % [list_end]
   %
   % [manpage_end]

If the above text is (suitably unindented and) fed through docstrip::util::ddt2man then the result will be a syntactically correct doctools manpage, even though its purpose is a bit different.

It is suggested that master source code files with doctools markup are given the suffix ".ddt", hence the "ddt" in ddt2man.

The guards command returns information (mostly of a statistical nature) about the ordinary docstrip guards that occur in the text. The subcmd selects what is returned.
List the guard expression terminals with counts. The format of the return value is a dictionary which maps the terminal name to the number of occurencies of it in the file.
List the guard expressions with counts. The format of the return value is a dictionary which maps the expression to the number of occurencies of it in the file.
List the syntactically incorrect guard expressions (e.g. parentheses do not match, or a terminal is missing). The return value is a list, with the elements in no particular order.
List the guard expressions. The return value is a list, with the elements in no particular order.
List the guard expressions with modifiers. The format of the return value is a dictionary where each index is a guard expression and each entry is a string with one character for every guard line that has this expression. The characters in the entry specify what modifier was used in that line: +, -, *, /, or (for guard without modifier:) space. This is the most primitive form of the information gathered by guards.
List the guard expression terminals. The return value is a list, with the elements in no particular order.
List the malformed guard lines (this does not include lines where only the expression is malformed, though). The format of the return value is a dictionary which maps line numbers to their contents.
The thefile command opens the file filename, reads it to end, closes it, and returns the contents. The option-value pairs are passed on to fconfigure to configure the open file channel before anything is read from it.

docstrip, doctools, doctools_fmt

Documentation tools

Copyright (c) 2003-2005 Lars Hellström <Lars dot Hellstrom at residenset dot net>
1.2 docstrip