Ddoc

Last updated

Ddoc is a compiler-embedded documentation generator and associated syntax, for the D programming language, designed by Walter Bright. Its emphasis is on being able to write documentation in code comments in a natural style, minimizing the need for embedded markup and thus improving the legibility of the code comments. It is similar in concept to Doxygen and Javadoc.

Contents

Code comments are associated with symbols in the code, and Ddoc uses the semantic and syntactic information available from the D compiler to fill in routine information such as parameters and return types automatically.

The code comments and symbol table information are processed by Ddoc into an internal structured format. Each of these structures corresponds to a template expressed as a macro. The template macros convert the structured format into another set of macros that express the markup. The latter set of markup macros are expanded to produce, by default, HTML.

Both the template macros and the markup macros can be overridden by the user, and can be applied via external files analogous to HTML style sheets. The template macros can be changed to customize the high level formatting, and the markup macros can be altered to produce other output forms such as XML and XHTML.

Compiler options

Several compiler options are available to cause the dmd D compiler to output an HTML documentation file:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transclusion</span> Including one data set inside another automatically

In computer science, transclusion is the inclusion of part or all of an electronic document into one or more other documents by reference via hypertext. Transclusion is usually performed when the referencing document is displayed, and is normally automatic and transparent to the end user. The result of transclusion is a single integrated document made of parts assembled dynamically from separate sources, possibly stored on different computers in disparate places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Literate programming</span> A programming approach of software development

Literate programming is a programming paradigm introduced in 1984 by Donald Knuth in which a computer program is given as an explanation of how it works in a natural language, such as English, interspersed (embedded) with snippets of macros and traditional source code, from which compilable source code can be generated. The approach is used in scientific computing and in data science routinely for reproducible research and open access purposes. Literate programming tools are used by millions of programmers today.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LaTeX</span> Document preparation software system

LaTeX is a software system for typesetting documents. LaTeX markup describes the content and layout of the document, as opposed to the formatted text found in WYSIWYG word processors like Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer and Apple Pages. The writer uses markup tagging conventions to define the general structure of a document, to stylise text throughout a document, and to add citations and cross-references. A TeX distribution such as TeX Live or MiKTeX is used to produce an output file suitable for printing or digital distribution.

In computing, a polyglot is a computer program or script written in a valid form of multiple programming languages or file formats. The name was coined by analogy to multilingualism. A polyglot file is composed by combining syntax from two or more different formats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doxygen</span> Free software for generating software documentation from source code

Doxygen is a documentation generator and static analysis tool for software source trees. When used as a documentation generator, Doxygen extracts information from specially-formatted comments within the code. When used for analysis, Doxygen uses its parse tree to generate diagrams and charts of the code structure. Doxygen can cross reference documentation and code, so that the reader of a document can easily refer to the actual code.

A lightweight markup language (LML), also termed a simple or humane markup language, is a markup language with simple, unobtrusive syntax. It is designed to be easy to write using any generic text editor and easy to read in its raw form. Lightweight markup languages are used in applications where it may be necessary to read the raw document as well as the final rendered output.

MHTML, an initialism of "MIME encapsulation of aggregate HTML documents", is a Web archive file format used to combine, in a single computer file, the HTML code and its companion resources that are represented by external hyperlinks in the web page's HTML code. The content of an MHTML file is encoded using the same techniques that were first developed for HTML email messages, using the MIME content type multipart/related. MHTML files use an .mhtml or .mht filename extension.

Javadoc is a documentation generator created by Sun Microsystems for the Java language for generating API documentation in HTML format from Java source code. The HTML format is used for adding the convenience of being able to hyperlink related documents together.

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of documentation generators. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. Unless otherwise specified in footnotes, comparisons are based on the stable versions without any add-ons, extensions or external programs. Note that many of the generators listed are no longer maintained.

In computer programming, a precompiled header (PCH) is a header file that is compiled into an intermediate form that is faster to process for the compiler. Usage of precompiled headers may significantly reduce compilation time, especially when applied to large header files, header files that include many other header files, or header files that are included in many translation units.

Embedded Ruby is a templating system that embeds Ruby into a text document. It is often used to embed Ruby code in an HTML document, similar to ASP and JSP, and PHP and other server-side scripting languages. The templating system of eRuby combines Ruby code and plain text to provide flow control and variable substitution, thus making the combined code easier to maintain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jinja (template engine)</span> Template engine for the Python programming language associated with the Flask framework

Jinja is a web template engine for the Python programming language. It was created by Armin Ronacher and is licensed under a BSD License. Jinja is similar to the Django template engine but provides Python-like expressions while ensuring that the templates are evaluated in a sandbox. It is a text-based template language and thus can be used to generate any markup as well as source code.

Sandcastle is a documentation generator from Microsoft. It automatically produces MSDN-style code documentation out of reflection information of .NET assemblies and XML documentation comments found in the source code of these assemblies. It can also be used to produce user documentation from Microsoft Assistance Markup Language (MAML) with the same look and feel as reference documentation.

The Windows software trace preprocessor is a preprocessor that simplifies the use of WMI event tracing to implement efficient software tracing in drivers and applications that target Windows 2000 and later operating systems. WPP was created by Microsoft and is included in the Windows DDK. Although WPP is wide in its applicability, it is not included in the Windows SDK, and therefore is primarily used for drivers and driver support software produced by software vendors that purchase the Windows DDK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comment (computer programming)</span> Explanatory note in the source code of a computer program

In computer programming, a comment is a programmer-readable explanation or annotation in the source code of a computer program. They are added with the purpose of making the source code easier for humans to understand, and are generally ignored by compilers and interpreters. The syntax of comments in various programming languages varies considerably.

Haml is a templating system that is designed to avoid writing inline code in a web document and make the HTML cleaner. Haml gives you the flexibility to have some dynamic content in HTML. Similar to other template systems like eRuby, Haml also embeds some code that gets executed during runtime and generates HTML code in order to provide some dynamic content. In order to run Haml code, files need to have a .haml extension. These files are similar to .erb or .eRuby files, which also help embed Ruby code while developing a web application.

A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or free.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VSdocman</span>

VSdocman is a documentation generator that allows for code commenting and the automatic generation of technical documentation from C# and VB .NET projects. It is directly integrated in Visual Studio as an extension.

Gcov is a source code coverage analysis and statement-by-statement profiling tool. Gcov generates exact counts of the number of times each statement in a program is executed and annotates source code to add instrumentation. Gcov comes as a standard utility with the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) suite.

ASP.NET Web Forms is a web application framework and one of several programming models supported by the Microsoft ASP.NET technology. Web Forms applications can be written in any programming language which supports the Common Language Runtime, such as C# or Visual Basic. The main building blocks of Web Forms pages are server controls, which are reusable components responsible for rendering HTML markup and responding to events. A technique called view state is used to persist the state of server controls between normally stateless HTTP requests.

References