NAME¶
doctools::toc - Holding tables of contents
SYNOPSIS¶
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?
DESCRIPTION¶
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.
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 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.
OBJECT COMMAND¶
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.
OBJECT METHODS¶
- 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.
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 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.
KEYWORDS¶
HTML, TMML, conversion, doctoc markup, documentation, formatting, generation,
json, latex, markup, nroff, parsing, plugin, reference, table, table of
contents, tcler's wiki, text, wiki
CATEGORY¶
Documentation tools
COPYRIGHT¶
Copyright (c) 2009 Andreas Kupries <andreas_kupries@users.sourceforge.net>