**docdeep** Introduction ============ `docdeep` is a utility that extracts documentation from source code and turns them into beautiful Markdeep documents. [Markdeep](https://casual-effects.com/markdeep) is a package by Morgan McGuire, an extension of Markdown with a whole bunch of nice features that make it extra nice for code, math, and diagrams. Read the Markdeep web page and look at the examples for details. `docdeep` is a little like `Doxygen`. A poor person's Doxygen. A very poor person. But without Doxygen's awkward syntax -- you just write the comments in Markdeep. And the output is very aesthetically pleasing. But it doesn't have any bells and whistles, like cross-referencing. Markup controls =============== ## Documentation lines. A line whose first three non-whitespace characters are either `///` or `###` is called a *doc-line*. Any other line is a *non-doc-line*. The `///` or `###` is the *doc-symbol*. Generally speaking, the `///` doc-symbol is used when doc-marking C or C++, and `###` when doc-marking Python, shell scripts, or other programs in languages where `#` is the comment character. For simplicity, in the rest of this document, we will always use `///` in our examples. ## Doc regions Doc-lines by themeslves don't do much, unless they are within a *doc-region*. The beginning of a doc-region is denoted by a doc-line whose first characters after the doc-symbol is
A doc region is ended one of three ways: 1. `</doc>` ends the active region. 2. `<doc newname>` setting a new region name. 3. The end of the source file. When there is an active named region, any other doc lines will be appended (after stripping off the doc symbol itself) to the current doc region text. You can have multiple regions with the same name, in entirely separate parts of your source code. They will just be concatenated. Only one main doc region will be output by the `docdeep` program, specified with the `-d` command line argument. Any other doc-regions will not be included in the documentation output of that run. However, one doc-region may *include* the text of another doc-region as follows:
## Doc continuations and code regions If three dots follow the `doc` directive, like this:
This causes *all* lines (until the end of the doc region) to be interpreted as Markdeep documentation, even it if doesn't start with the doc-symbol. Furthermore, denoting any region thusly:
will designate the contents not only as a doc continuation, but also to be formatted as source code (mono space, syntax highlighted). ## API Explanations There is a special syntax for a common case: call-by-call explanations of API methods and their explanations. Of course, this may constitute the bulk of your auto-generated documentation. The two cases we are concerned about is *pre-code comments* and *post-code comments*. For pre-code comments, the contiguous comment region associated with a declaration immediately precedes the declaration. Such a comment set has its first line start with `///>`. For post-code comments, the documentation comments follows the code declaration, and this is designated by having its first line start with `///<`. I like to just remember that the `<` or `>` points in the direction of the code declaration that the comment applies to. This is perhaps best explained by example:
This will generate the following output:
Do the foo operation. Everybody knows what this is. You can write any comment you want, with full markdeep formatting! It applies to the declaration that will immediately follow this comment.
The bar procedure. Note that with post-comments, you explain the function or method *after* the declaration itself. ----------------------- It is important to keep in mind that **this API explanation is extremely stupid**. The comment documentation is just a series of doc-lines with no break between them, whose *first* line starts with `///>' or `///>` (for pre-code and post-code docs, respectively). And the code that it documents is just the immediately preceding or following set of non-doc lines that contain *no* whitespace-only lines. There is no syntax parsing going on here -- it just takes those non-blank, non-doc lines, strips off any semicolons and any characters following the semicolon from each line in the block, and deletes anything in the whole block at or after the first opening brace (`{`) found in the block. Strangely enough, this is almost exactly what I want to document. Command line arguments ====================== Run from the command line as follows: `$ python docdeep.py -d` *region* `-s` *style.css* `input1.h input2.cpp [...] > output.md.html` Arguments: `-d` *region* : Specifies the name of the doc-region to generate output for. This is required. `-s` *stylesheet* : This optional argument will specify which CSS style sheet to include a reference to. Any number of filenames may be specified. They will be processed in the order that they appear on the command line.