doctools::idx::export(3tcl) Documentation tools doctools::idx::export(3tcl)
______________________________________________________________________________
NAME
doctools::idx::export - Exporting keyword indices
SYNOPSIS
package require doctools::idx::export ?0.2.1?
package require Tcl 8.4
package require struct::map
package require doctools::idx::structure
package require snit
package require pluginmgr
::doctools::idx::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
keyword indices to other formats, i.e. their conversion to, for example
docidx, HTML, etc.
This is one of the three public pillars the management of keyword in-
dices resides on. The other two pillars are
[1] Importing keyword indices, and
[2] Holding keyword indices
For information about the Concepts of keyword indices, 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 pack-
age see the section Keyword index 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_IDX_EXPORT_PLUGINS,
[2] the environment variable DOCTOOLS_IDX_PLUGINS,
[3] the environment variable DOCTOOLS_PLUGINS,
[4] the path "~/.doctools/idx/export/plugin"
[5] the path "~/.doctools/idx/plugin"
[6] the path "~/.doctools/plugin"
[7] the path "~/.doctools/idx/export/plugins"
[8] the path "~/.doctools/idx/plugins"
[9] the path "~/.doctools/plugins"
[10] the registry entry "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\DOCTOOLS\IDX\EX-
PORT\PLUGINS"
[11] the registry entry "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\DOC-
TOOLS\IDX\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
docidx See docidx 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 Ex-
port plugin API v2 reference is an absolute necessity, as it specifies
the interaction between this package and its plugins in detail.
CONCEPTS
[1] A keyword index consists of a (possibly empty) set of keywords.
[2] Each keyword in the set is identified by its name.
[3] Each keyword has a (possibly empty) set of references.
[4] A reference can be associated with more than one keyword.
[5] A reference not associated with at least one keyword is not pos-
sible however.
[6] Each reference is identified by its target, specified as either
an url or symbolic filename, depending on the type of reference
(url, or manpage).
[7] The type of a reference (url, or manpage) depends only on the
reference itself, and not the keywords it is associated with.
[8] In addition to a type each reference has a descriptive label as
well. This label depends only on the reference itself, and not
the keywords it is associated with.
A few notes
[1] Manpage references are intended to be used for references to the
documents the index is made for. Their target is a symbolic file
name identifying the document, and export plugins may replace
symbolic with actual file names, if specified.
[2] Url references are intended on the othre hand are inteded to be
used for links to anything else, like websites. Their target is
an url.
[3] While url and manpage references share a namespace for their
identifiers, this should be no problem, given that manpage iden-
tifiers are symbolic filenames and as such they should never
look like urls, the identifiers for url references.
API
PACKAGE COMMANDS
::doctools::idx::export objectName
This command creates a new export manager object with an associ-
ated 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::idx::export command have the
following general form:
objectName method ?arg arg ...?
The method method and its arg'uments determine the exact behav-
ior 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 keyword index
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 docidx.
The specification of what a canonical serialization is can be
found in the section Keyword index 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 keyword index. It invokes that
method, feeds the result into export serial and returns the re-
sulting string as its own result.
objectName config names
This method returns a list containing the names of all configu-
ration 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 speci-
fied 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 overridden 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 un-
set 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 Keyword index 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::idx::ex-
port::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 keyword index in that format.
[3] The plugin can expect that the package doctools::idx::ex-
port::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::idx has to gener-
ate output for an index it will invoke this command.
string serial
This argument will contain the canonical serial-
ization of the index for which to generate the
output. The specification of what a canonical se-
rialization is can be found in the section Keyword
index serialization format.
dictionary configuration
This argument will contain the current configura-
tion to apply to the generation, as a dictionary
mapping from variable names to values.
The following configuration variables have a pre-
defined meaning all plugins have to obey, although
they can ignore this information at their discre-
tion. Any other other configuration variables rec-
ognized by a plugin will be described in the man-
page for that plugin.
user This variable is expected to contain the
name of the user owning the process invok-
ing 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 index 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 index object is expected to contain a
dictionary mapping from symbolic file names
used in the references of type manpage to
actual paths (or urls). A plugin has to be
able to handle the possibility that a sym-
bolic name is without entry in this map-
ping.
[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.
KEYWORD INDEX SERIALIZATION FORMAT
Here we specify the format used by the doctools v2 packages to serial-
ize keyword indices as immutable values for transport, comparison, etc.
We distinguish between regular and canonical serializations. While a
keyword index may have more than one regular serialization only exactly
one of them will be canonical.
regular serialization
[1] An index serialization is a nested Tcl dictionary.
[2] This dictionary holds a single key, doctools::idx, and
its value. This value holds the contents of the index.
[3] The contents of the index are a Tcl dictionary holding
the title of the index, a label, and the keywords and
references. The relevant keys and their values are
title The value is a string containing the title of the
index.
label The value is a string containing a label for the
index.
keywords
The value is a Tcl dictionary, using the keywords
known to the index as keys. The associated values
are lists containing the identifiers of the refer-
ences associated with that particular keyword.
Any reference identifier used in these lists has
to exist as a key in the references dictionary,
see the next item for its definition.
references
The value is a Tcl dictionary, using the identi-
fiers for the references known to the index as
keys. The associated values are 2-element lists
containing the type and label of the reference, in
this order.
Any key here has to be associated with at least
one keyword, i.e. occur in at least one of the
reference lists which are the values in the key-
words dictionary, see previous item for its defi-
nition.
[4] The type of a reference can be one of two values,
manpage
The identifier of the reference is interpreted as
symbolic file name, referring to one of the docu-
ments the index was made for.
url The identifier of the reference is interpreted as
an url, referring to some external location, like
a website, etc.
canonical serialization
The canonical serialization of a keyword index has the format as
specified in the previous item, and then additionally satisfies
the constraints below, which make it unique among all the possi-
ble serializations of the keyword index.
[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.
[2] The references listed for each keyword of the index, if
any, are listed in ascending dictionary order of their
labels, as generated by Tcl's builtin command lsort -in-
creasing -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.
When proposing code changes, please provide unified diffs, i.e the out-
put of diff -u.
Note further that attachments are strongly preferred over inlined
patches. Attachments can be made by going to the Edit form of the
ticket immediately after its creation, and then using the left-most
button in the secondary navigation bar.
KEYWORDS
HTML, conversion, docidx, documentation, export, formatting, genera-
tion, index, json, keyword index, manpage, markup, nroff, plugin, ref-
erence, tcler's wiki, text, url, wiki
CATEGORY
Documentation tools
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2009-2019 Andreas Kupries <andreas_kupries@users.sourceforge.net>
tcllib 0.2.1 doctools::idx::export(3tcl)