On Tuesday, February 04, 2003 8:19 AM [GMT+1=CET],
Jeff Garland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> > Synopsis has tunable comment processors - you can make them as
> > smart or as
> > dumb as you want them to be (it's Python, so it's easy ;-)).  In my
> > case,
> > the rule is simple - the comment describing the function appears as
> > a solid
> > block right before its declaration with no intervening line
> > separation.
>
> Sorry I think I was unclear.  I'm asking how a portion of that block
> is devoted to a specific portion of the description.  For example:
>
> /** Brief description of function.
>     Long description of function
>     ....
>  @return Describe the return value here.
>  @pre  precondition for the function
>  @post postcondition for the function
> */
> int f();

Nay, it was I who was unclear.  How you do that is tunable.  If you like
that style, you can use it.  Personally, I would do something like this:

// Brief description of function
// Long description of function
// ...
//
// Returns: Describe the return value here.
// Preconditions: precondition for the function
// Postconditions: postcondition for the function
// Throws: what it throws
// ...

Because I want my comments to look like English ;-)

> > > That's good to hear.  It doesn't look like Synopsis has an
> > > XML ouptput formatter yet -- is that in the works?
> >
> > It has a DocBook formatter, in fact... though it's being a little
> > bit
> > strange about type qualifiers at the moment.  We just need to take
> > a look at
> > the differences with the HTML formatter to see what the major
> > differences
> > are.
>
> Sounds like it's on the right track.

Yep.

> > > Also, as I recall
> > > last time I checked on Synopsis I had installation issues or some
> > > other difficulty -- that would have been shortly after the last
> > > committee meeting.
> >
> > I think I can help with that.  Anyway, since I've just wiped my
> > machine I'm
> > going to want to reinstall it myself, so we can experience the joys
> > together ;-)
>
> You first ;-)

Okey doke.

> > > Agreed, but I think in this case the diversity might be ok.
> > > Document generation is sufficiently complex that I'm sure that
> > > Synopsis and Doxygen will continue to have various strengths and
> > > weaknesses that might draw some users to one or the other
> > > solution.
> >
> > They might, but as Doug has pointed out repeatedly, you won't be
> > able to
> > simply process regular C++ code and get reasonable BoostBook, so
> > we'll have
> > to add some new directives, markup formats, etc.  That will be
> > repeated work
> > for us, on  top of whatever differences the two tools have.
>
> Well, you can get plenty of output from regular C++ but if you don't
> write
> comments in the code in a structured way no solution is going to
> generate
> a reference materials from the code, period.

Clearly.

> Either solution can
> generate
> an unannotated header synopsis from pure C++, but that isn't going to
> cut
> it for boost references.  OTH, some people might want to take
> unannotated
> source, generate a skeleton set of reference docs in XML from the
> source,
> add meat to the generated XML and just maintain the XML.
>
> As for repeated work, I don't think I follow.  Doug has already
> written most
> of the translation scripts for Doxygen XML output to BoostBook XML.
> For
> Synopsis you could write a backend that just outputs BoostBook
> directly.
> Or you could just use the Docbook directly and live with a slight
> reduction
> in functionality.  Anyway, once it is in BoostBook all the backend
> processing is the same so I don't see that there is much overlapping
> work...

It's the front-end processing needed to make extracting usable BoostBook
from C++ source with minimal annotation that I think will be repeated.


Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
http://www.boost-consulting.com



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