NAME¶
doctools::toc::export - Exporting tables of contents
SYNOPSIS¶
package require
doctools::toc::export ?0.1?
package require
Tcl 8.4
package require
doctools::config
package require
doctools::toc::structure
package require
snit
package require
pluginmgr
::doctools::toc::export objectName
objectName method ?
arg arg ...?
objectName destroy
objectName export serial serial ?
format?
objectName export object object ?
format?
objectName config names
objectName config get
objectName config set name ?
value?
objectName config unset pattern...
export serial configuration
DESCRIPTION¶
This package provides a class to manage the plugins for the export of tables of
contents to other formats, i.e. their conversion to, for example
doctoc,
HTML, etc.
This is one of the three public pillars the management of tables of contents
resides on. The other two pillars are
- [1]
- Importing tables of contents, and
- [2]
- Holding 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 the major input to the manager objects provided by this package see
the section
ToC serialization format.
The plugin system of our class is based on the package
pluginmgr, and
configured to look for plugins using
- [1]
- the environment variable DOCTOOLS_TOC_EXPORT_PLUGINS,
- [2]
- the environment variable DOCTOOLS_TOC_PLUGINS,
- [3]
- the environment variable DOCTOOLS_PLUGINS,
- [4]
- the path "~/.doctools/toc/export/plugin"
- [5]
- the path "~/.doctools/toc/plugin"
- [6]
- the path "~/.doctools/plugin"
- [7]
- the path "~/.doctools/toc/export/plugins"
- [8]
- the path "~/.doctools/toc/plugins"
- [9]
- the path "~/.doctools/plugins"
- [10]
- the registry entry
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\DOCTOOLS\TOC\EXPORT\PLUGINS"
- [11]
- the registry entry
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\DOCTOOLS\TOC\PLUGINS"
- [12]
- the registry entry
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\DOCTOOLS\PLUGINS"
The last three are used only when the package is run on a machine using
Windows(tm) operating system.
The whole system is delivered with six predefined export plugins, namely
- doctoc
- See doctoc export plugin for details.
- html
- See html export plugin for details.
- json
- See json export plugin for details.
- nroff
- See nroff export plugin for details.
- text
- See text export plugin for details.
- wiki
- See wiki export plugin for details.
Readers wishing to write their own export plugin for some format, i.e.
plugin
writers reading and understanding the section containing the
Export
plugin API v2 reference is an absolute necessity, as it specifies the
interaction between this package and its plugins in detail.
CONCEPTS¶
- [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.
API¶
PACKAGE COMMANDS¶
- ::doctools::toc::export objectName
- This command creates a new export manager 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.
OBJECT COMMAND¶
All objects created by the
::doctools::toc::export 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.
OBJECT METHODS¶
- objectName destroy
- This method destroys the object it is invoked for.
- objectName export serial serial ?format?
- This method takes the canonical serialization of a table of contents
stored in serial and converts it to the specified format,
using the export plugin for the format. An error is thrown if no plugin
could be found for the format. The string generated by the conversion
process is returned as the result of this method.
If no format is specified the method defaults to doctoc.
The specification of what a canonical serialization is can be found
in the section ToC serialization format.
The plugin has to conform to the interface specified in section Export
plugin API v2 reference.
- objectName export object object ?format?
- This method is a convenient wrapper around the export serial method
described by the previous item. It expects that object is an object
command supporting a serialize method returning the canonical
serialization of a table of contents. It invokes that method, feeds the
result into export serial and returns the resulting string as its
own result.
- objectName config names
- This method returns a list containing the names of all configuration
variables currently known to the object.
- objectName config get
- This method returns a dictionary containing the names and values of all
configuration variables currently known to the object.
- objectName config set name ?value?
- This method sets the configuration variable name to the specified
value and returns the new value of the variable.
If no value is specified it simply returns the current value, without
changing it.
Note that while the user can set the predefined configuration variables
user and format doing so will have no effect, these values
will be internally overriden when invoking an import plugin.
- objectName config unset pattern...
- This method unsets all configuration variables matching the specified glob
patterns. If no pattern is specified it will unset all currently
defined configuration variables.
EXPORT PLUGIN API V2 REFERENCE¶
Plugins are what this package uses to manage the support for any output format
beyond the
ToC serialization format. Here we specify the API the
objects created by this package use to interact with their plugins.
A plugin for this package has to follow the rules listed below:
- [1]
- A plugin is a package.
- [2]
- The name of a plugin package has the form doctools::toc::export::
FOO, where FOO is the name of the format the plugin will
generate output for. This name is also the argument to provide to the
various export methods of export manager objects to get a string
encoding a table of contents in that format.
- [3]
- The plugin can expect that the package
doctools::toc::export::plugin is present, as indicator that it was
invoked from a genuine plugin manager.
- [4]
- A plugin has to provide one command, with the signature shown below.
- export serial configuration
- Whenever an export manager of doctools::toc has to generate output
for a table of contents it will invoke this command.
- string serial
- This argument will contain the canonical serialization of the table
of contents for which to generate the output. The specification of what a
canonical serialization is can be found in the section ToC
serialization format.
- dictionary configuration
- This argument will contain the current configuration to apply to the
generation, as a dictionary mapping from variable names to values.
The following configuration variables have a predefined meaning all plugins
have to obey, although they can ignore this information at their
discretion. Any other other configuration variables recognized by a plugin
will be described in the manpage for that plugin.
- user
- This variable is expected to contain the name of the user owning the
process invoking the plugin.
- format
- This variable is expected to contain the name of the format whose plugin
is invoked.
- file
- This variable, if defined by the user of the table object is expected to
contain the name of the input file for which the plugin is generating its
output for.
- map
- This variable, if defined by the user of the table object is expected to
contain a dictionary mapping from symbolic document ids used in the table
entries to actual paths (or urls). A plugin has to be able to handle the
possibility that a document id is without entry in this mapping.
- [5]
- A single usage cycle of a plugin consists of the invokations of the
command export. This call has to leave the plugin in a state where
another usage cycle can be run without problems.
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.
BUGS, IDEAS, FEEDBACK¶
This document, and the package it describes, will undoubtedly contain bugs and
other problems. Please report such in the category
doctools of the
Tcllib Trackers [
http://core.tcl.tk/tcllib/reportlist]. Please also
report any ideas for enhancements you may have for either package and/or
documentation.
KEYWORDS¶
HTML, conversion, doctoc, documentation, export, formatting, generation, json,
manpage, markup, nroff, plugin, reference, table, table of contents, tcler's
wiki, text, url, wiki
CATEGORY¶
Documentation tools
COPYRIGHT¶
Copyright (c) 2009 Andreas Kupries <andreas_kupries@users.sourceforge.net>