The autogsdoc tool
Overview
The autogsdoc tool is a command-line utility that helps developers
produce reference documentation for GNUstep APIs. It also enables
developers to write and maintain other documentation in XML and have it
converted to HTML. In detail, autogsdoc will:
-
Extract special comments describing the public interfaces of classes,
categories, protocols, functions, and macros from Objective C source
code (header files and optionally source files) into GSDoc XML files.
(Note that since C is a subset of Objective C, this tool can operate
to document functions and other C structures in plain C source.)
-
Convert GSDoc XML files, whether generated from source code or written
manually by developers, into HTML.
-
Construct indices based on GSDoc XML file sets, and convert those
to HTML as well.
synopsis: autogsdoc (options) (files)
(options) described below
(files) .h
, .m
, .gsdoc
, and/or .html
files, in any order.
The most common usage this is to run the command with one or more
header file names as arguments ... the tool will automatically
parse corresponding source files in the same directory as the
headers (or the current directory, or the directory specified
using the DocumentationDirectory default), and produce GSDoc
and HTML files as output. For best results this mode should be
run from the directory containing the source files.
GSDoc files may also be given directly in addition or by themselves, and
will be converted to HTML. See the
GSDoc reference for information
on the GSDoc format.
Finally, HTML files may be given on the command line. Cross-references
to other parts of code documentation found within them will be rewritten
based on what is found in the project currently.
Source Code Markup
The source code parser will automatically produce GSDoc documents
listing the methods in the classes found in the source files, and it
will include text from specially formatted comments from the source
files.
Any comment beginning with slash and two asterisks rather than
the common slash and single asterisk, is taken to be GSDoc markup, to
be use as the description of the class or method following it. This
comment text is reformatted and then inserted into the output.
Where multiple comments are associated with the same item, they are
joined together with a line break (<br />) between each if
necessary.
The tool can easily be used to document programs as well as libraries,
simply by giving it the name of the source file containing the main()
function of the program - it takes the special comments from that
function and handles them specially, inserting them as a section at
the end of the first chapter of the document (it creates the first
chapter if necessary).
Options are described in the section
Arguments and Defaults below.
Extra markup
There are some cases where special extra processing is performed,
predominantly in the first comment found in the source file,
from which various chunks of GSDoc markup may be extracted and
placed into appropriate locations in the output document -
- AutogsdocSource:
In any line where
AutogsdocSource
: is found, the
remainder of the line is taken as a source file name to be used
instead of making the assumption that each .h file processed uses
a .m file of the same name. You may supply multiple
AutogsdocSource
: lines where a header file declares
items which are defined in multiple source files.
If a file name
is absolute, it is used just as supplied.
If on the other hand,
it is a relative path, the software looks for the source file first
relative to the location of the header file, and if not found there,
relative to the current directory in which autogsdoc is running, and
finally relative to the directory specified by the
DocumentationDirectory
default.
- <abstract>
An abstract of the content of the document ... placed in the head
of the GSDoc output.
- <author>
A description of the author of the code - may be repeated to handle
the case where a document has multiple authors. Placed in the
head of the GSDoc output.
As an aid to readability of the source, some special additional
processing is performed related to the document author -
Any line of the form 'Author
: name <email-address>',
or 'By
: name <email-address>',
or 'Author
: name' or 'By
: name'
will be recognised and converted to an author element,
possibly containing an email element.
- <back>
Placed in the GSDoc output just before the end of the body of the
document - intended to be used for appendices, index etc..
- <chapter>
Placed immediately before any generated class documentation ...
intended to be used to provide overall description of how the
code being documented works.
Any documentation for the main()
function of a program is inserted as a section at the end of this
chapter.
- <copy>
Copyright of the content of the document ... placed in the head
of the GSDoc output.
As an aid to readability of the source, some special additional
processing is performed -
Any line of the form 'Copyright (C) text' will be recognised and
converted to a copy element.
- <date>
Date of the revision of the document ... placed in the head
of the GSDoc output. If this is omitted the tool will try to
construct a value from the RCS Date tag (if available).
- <front>
Inserted into the document at the start of the body ... intended
to provide for introduction or contents pages etc.
- <title>
Title of the document ... placed in the head of the GSDoc output.
If this is omitted the tool will generate a (probably poor)
title of its own - so you should include this markup manually.
- <version>
Version identifier of the document ... placed in the head
of the GSDoc output. If this is omitted the tool will try to
construct a value from the RCS Revision tag (if available).
NBThe markup just described may be used within class,
category, or protocol documentation ... if so, it is extracted and
wrapped round the rest of the documentation for the class as the
class's chapter. The rest of the class documentation is normally
inserted at the end of the chapter, but may instead be substituted in
in place of the <unit /> pseudo-element within the
<chapter> element.
Method markup
In comments being used to provide text for a method description, the
following markup is removed from the text and handled specially -
- <init />
The method is marked as being the designated initialiser for the class.
- <override-subclass />
The method is marked as being one which subclasses must override
(e.g. an abstract method).
- <override-never />
The method is marked as being one which subclasses should NOT
override.
- <standards> ... </standards>
The markup is removed from the description and placed after
it in the GSDoc output - so that the method is described as
conforming (or not conforming) to the specified standards.
Automated markup
Generally, the text in comments is reformatted to standardise and
indent it nicely ... the reformatting is not performed on
any text inside an <example> element.
When the text is reformatted, it is broken into whitespace separated
'words' which are then subjected to some extra processing ...
- Certain well known constants such as YES, NO, and nil are
enclosed in <code> ... </code> markup.
- The names of method arguments within method descriptions are
enclosed in <var> ... </var> markup.
- Method names (beginning with a plus or minus) are enclosed
in <ref...> ... </ref> markup.
e.g. "-init" (without the quotes) would be wrapped in a GSDoc
reference element to point to the init method of the current
class or, if only one known class had an init method, it
would refer to the method of that class.
Note the fact that the method name must be surrounded by
whitespace to be recognized (though a comma, fullstop, or semicolon
at the end of the specifier will act like whitespace).
- Method specifiers including class names (beginning and ending with
square brackets) are enclosed in <ref...> ... </ref> markup.
e.g. [
NSObject-init]
,
will create a reference to the init method of NSObject (either the
class proper, or any of its categories), while
[
(NSCopying)-copyWithZone:]
, creates a
reference to a method in the NSCopying protocol.
Note that no spaces must appear between the square brackets
in these specifiers.
Protocol names are enclosed in round brackets rather than
the customary angle brackets, because GSDoc is an XML language, and
XML treats angle brackets specially.
- Class names (and also protocol and category names) enclosed
in square brackets are also cross referenced.
Protocol names are enclosed in round brackets rather than
the customary angle brackets, because GSDoc is an XML language, and
XML treats angle brackets specially.
- Function names (ending with '()') other than 'main()' are enclosed
in <ref...> ... </ref> markup.
e.g. "NSLogv()" (without the quotes) would be wrapped in a GSDoc
reference element to point to the documentation of the NSLog function.
Note the fact that the function name must be surrounded by
whitespace (though a comma, fullstop, or semicolon at the end
of the specifier will also act as a whitespace terminator).
Arguments and Defaults
The tool accepts certain user defaults (which can of course be
supplied as command-line arguments by prepending '-' before the default
name and giving the value afterwards, as in -Clean YES
):
- Clean
If this boolean value is set to YES, then rather than generating
documentation, the tool removes all GSDoc files generated in the
project, and all html files generated from them (as well as any
which would be generated from GSDoc files listed explicitly),
and finally removes the project index file.
The only exception to this is that template GSDoc files (i.e. those
specified using "-ConstantsTemplate ...", "-FunctionsTemplate ..."
arguments etc) are not deleted unless the CleanTemplates flag is set.
- CleanTemplates
This flag specifies whether template GSDoc files are to be removed
along with other files when the Clean option is specified.
The default is for them not to be removed ... since these templates
may have been produced manually and just had data inserted into them.
- ConstantsTemplate
Specify the name of a template document into which documentation
about constants should be inserted from all files in the project.
This is useful if constants in the source code are scattered around many
files, and you need to group them into one place.
You are responsible for ensuring that the basic template document
(into which individual constant documentation is inserted) contains
all the other information you want, but as a convenience autogsdoc
will generate a simple template (which you may then edit) for you
if the file does not exist.
Insertion takes place immediately before the back
element (or if that does not exist, immediately before the end
of the body element) in the template.
- Declared
Specify where headers are to be documented as being found.
The actual name produced in the documentation is formed by appending
the last component of the header file name to the value of this
default.
If this default is not specified, the full name of the header file
(as supplied on the command line), with the HeaderDirectory
default prepended, is used.
A typical usage of this might be "-Declared Foundation"
when generating documentation for the GNUstep base library. This
would result in the documentation saying that NSString is declared
in Foundation/NSString.h
- DocumentAllInstanceVariables
This flag permits you to generate documentation for all instance
variables. Normally, only those explicitly declared 'public' or
'protected' will be documented.
- DocumentInstanceVariables
This flag permits you to turn off documentation for instance
variables completely. Normally, explicitly declared 'public' or
'protected' instance variables will be documented.
- InstanceVariablesAtEnd
This flag, if set, directs the HTML generator to place instance
variable documentation at the end of the class, instead of the
beginning. This is useful if you use a lot of protected instance
variables which are only going to be of secondary interest to general
users of the class.
- DocumentationDirectory
May be used to specify the directory in which generated documentation
is to be placed. If this is not set, output is placed in the current
directory. This directory is also used as a last resort to locate
source files (not headers), and more importantly, it is used as the
first and only resort to locate any
.gsdoc
files
that are passed in on the command line. Any path information given
for these files is removed and they are
searched for in DocumentationDirectory
(even though they
may not have been autogenerated).
- Files
Specifies the name of a file containing a list of file names as
a property list array (name1,name2,...) format. If this
is present, filenames in the program argument list are ignored and
the names in this file are used as the list of names to process.
- FunctionsTemplate
Specify the name of a template document into which documentation
about functions should be inserted from all files in the project.
This is useful if function source code is scattered around many
files, and you need to group it into one place.
You are responsible for ensuring that the basic template document
(into which individual function documentation is inserted) contains
all the other information you want, but as a convenience autogsdoc
will generate a simple template (which you may then edit) for you
if the file does not exist.
Insertion takes place immediately before the back
element (or if that does not exist, immediately before the end
of the body element) in the template.
- GenerateHtml
May be used to specify if HTML output is to be generated.
Defaults to YES.
- HeaderDirectory
May be used to specify the directory to be searched for header files.
When supplied, this value is prepended to relative header names,
otherwise the relative header names are interpreted relative to
the current directory.
Header files specified as absolute paths are not influenced by this
default.
- IgnoreDependencies
A boolean value which may be used to specify that the program should
ignore file modification times and regenerate files anyway. Provided
for use in conjunction with the
make
system, which is
expected to manage dependency checking itself.
- LocalProjects
This value is used to control the automatic inclusion of local
external projects into the indexing system for generation of
cross-references in final document output.
If set to 'None', then no local project references are done,
otherwise, the 'Local' GNUstep documentation directory is recursively
searched for files with a .igsdoc
extension, and the
indexing information from those files is used.
The value of this string is also used to generate the filenames in
the cross reference ... if it is an empty string, the path to use
is assumed to be a file in the same directory where the igsdoc
file was found, otherwise it is used as a prefix to the name in
the index.
NB. Local projects with the same name as the project currently
being documented will not be included by this mechanism.
If you wish to include such projects, you must do so explicitly
using "-Projects ..."
- MacrosTemplate
Specify the name of a template document into which documentation
about macros should be inserted from all files in the project.
This is useful if macro code is scattered around many
files, and you need to group it into one place.
You are responsible for ensuring that the basic template document
(into which individual macro documentation is inserted) contains
all the other information you want, but as a convenience autogsdoc
will generate a simple template (which you may then edit) for you
if the file does not exist.
Insertion takes place immediately before the back
element (or if that does not exist, immediately before the end
of the body element) in the template.
- MakeDependencies
A filename to be used to output dependency information for make. This
will take the form of listing all header and source files known for
the project as dependencies of the project name (see
Project
).
- Project
Specifies the name of this project ... determines the
name of the index reference file produced as part of the documentation
to provide information enabling other projects to cross-reference to
items in this project. If not set, 'Untitled' is used.
- Projects
This value may be supplied as a dictionary containing the paths to
the igsdoc index/reference files used by external projects, along
with values to be used to map the filenames found in the indexes.
For example, if a project index (igsdoc) file says that the class
Foo
is found in the file Foo
, and the
path associated with that project index is /usr/doc/proj
,
Then generated html output may reference the class as being in
/usr/doc/prj/Foo.html
. Note that a dictionary may be
given on the command line by using the standard PropertyList format
(not the XML format of OS X), using semicolons as line-separators, and
enclosing it in single quotes.
- ShowDependencies
A boolean value which may be used to specify that the program should
log which files are being regenerated because of their dependencies
on other files.
- Standards
A boolean value used to specify whether the program should insert
information about standards complience into the documentation.
This should only be used when documenting the GNUstep libraries
and tools themselves as it assumes that the code being documented
is part of GNUstep and possibly complies with the OpenStep standard
or implements MacOS-X compatible methods.
- SystemProjects
This value is used to control the automatic inclusion of system
external projects into the indexing system for generation of
cross-references in final document output.
If set to 'None', then no system project references are done,
otherwise, the 'System' GNUstep documentation directory is recursively
searched for files with a .igsdoc
extension, and the
indexing information from those files is used.
The value of this string is also used to generate the filenames in
the cross reference ... if it is an empty string, the path to use
is assumed to be a file in the same directory where the igsdoc
file was found, otherwise it is used as a prefix to the name in
the index.
NB. System projects with the same name as the project currently
being documented will not be included by this mechanism.
If you wish to include such projects, you must do so explicitly
using "-Projects ..."
- TypedefsTemplate
Specify the name of a template document into which documentation
about typedefs should be inserted from all files in the project.
This is useful if typedef source code is scattered around many
files, and you need to group it into one place.
You are responsible for ensuring that the basic template document
(into which individual typedef documentation is inserted) contains
all the other information you want, but as a convenience autogsdoc
will generate a simple template (which you may then edit) for you
if the file does not exist.
Insertion takes place immediately before the back
element (or if that does not exist, immediately before the end
of the body element) in the template.
- Up
A string used to supply the name to be used in the 'up' link from
generated GSDoc documents. This should normally be the name of a
file which contains an index of the contents of a project.
If this is missing or set to an empty string, then no 'up' link
will be provided in the documents.
- VariablesTemplate
Specify the name of a template document into which documentation
about variables should be inserted from all files in the project.
This is useful if variable source code is scattered around many
files, and you need to group it into one place.
You are responsible for ensuring that the basic template document
(into which individual variable documentation is inserted) contains
all the other information you want, but as a convenience autogsdoc
will generate a simple template (which you may then edit) for you
if the file does not exist.
Insertion takes place immediately before the back
element (or if that does not exist, immediately before the end
of the body element) in the template.
- Verbose
A boolean used to specify whether you want verbose debug/warning
output to be produced.
- Warn
A boolean used to specify whether you want standard warning
output (e.g. report of undocumented methods) produced.
- WordMap
This value is a dictionary used to map identifiers/keywords found
in the source files to other words. Generally you will not have
to use this, but it is sometimes helpful to avoid the parser being
confused by the use of C preprocessor macros. You can effectively
redefine the macro to something less confusing.
The value you map the identifier to must be one of -
Another identifier,
An empty string - the value is ignored,
Two slashes ('//') - the rest of the line is ignored.
Note that a dictionary may be given on the command line by using the
standard PropertyList format (not the XML format of OS X), using
semicolons as line-separators, and enclosing it in single quotes.
Inter-document linkage
The 'Up' default is used to specify the name of a document which
should be used as the 'up' link for any other documents used.
This name must not include a path or extension.
Generally, the document referred to by this default should be a
hand-edited GSDoc document which should have a back
section containing a project index. e.g.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE gsdoc PUBLIC "-//GNUstep//DTD gsdoc 1.0.1//EN"
"http://www.gnustep.org/gsdoc-1_0_1.xml">
<gsdoc base="index">
<head>
<title>My project reference</title>
<author name="my name"></author>
</head>
<body>
<chapter>
<heading>My project reference</heading>
</chapter>
<back>
<index scope="project" type="title" />
</back>
</body>
</gsdoc>
Implementation Notes
The autogsdoc tool internally makes use of the following four classes-
Parses source code comments to an internal representation.
Converts internal representation of source comments to a gsdoc
document.
Internal representation of an igsdoc file, representing indices
of a project's files.
Converts gsdoc XML to HTML, using AGSIndex instances.