/ 
Glib-1.040
River stage three • 92 direct dependents • 195 total dependents
/ Glib::GenPod

NAME

Glib::GenPod - POD generation utilities for Glib-based modules

SYNOPSIS

use Glib::GenPod;

# use the defaults:
xsdoc2pod ($xsdocparse_output_file, $destination_dir);

# or take matters into your own hands
require $xsdocparse_output_file;
foreach my $package (sort keys %$data) {
    print "=head1 NAME\n\n$package\n\n";
    print "=head1 METHODS\n\n" . podify_methods ($package) . "\n\n";
}

DESCRIPTION

This module includes several utilities for creating pod for xs-based Perl modules which build on the Glib module's foundations. The most important bits are the logic to convert the data structures created by xsdocparse.pl to describe xsubs and pods into method docs, with call signatures and argument descriptions, and converting C type names into Perl type names. The rest of the module is mostly boiler-plate code to format and pretty-print information that may be queried from the Glib type system.

To make life easy for module maintainers, we also include a do-it-all function, xsdoc2pod(), which does pretty much everything for you. All of the pieces it uses are publically usable, so you can do whatever you like if you don't like the default output.

DOCUMENTING THE XS FILES

All of the information used as input to the methods included here comes from the XS files of your project, and is extracted by Glib::ParseXSDoc's xsdocparse. This function creates an file containing Perl code that may be eval'd or require'd to recreate the parsed data structures, which are a list of pods from the verbatim C portion of the XS file (the xs api docs), and a hash of the remaining data, keyed by package name, and including the pods and xsubs read from the rest of each xs file following the first MODULE line.

Several custom POD directives are recognized in the XSubs section. Note that each one is sought as a paragraph starter, and must follow a =cut directive.

=for object Package::Name

All xsubs and pod from here until the next object directive or MODULE line will be placed under the key 'Package::Name' in xsdocparse's data structure. Everything from this line to the next =cut is included as a description POD.

=for enum Package::Name
=for flags Package::Name

This causes xsdoc2pod to call podify_values on Package::Name when writing the pod for the current package (as set by an object directive or MODULE line). Any text in this paragraph, to the next =cut, is included in that section.

=for see_also some_thing_to_see

Used to add extra see alsos onto the end of the parents, if any, for a given object. Anything following the space behind see_also up to the end of the line will be placed onto the list of see also's. There may be any number of these in each package.

=for apidoc
=for apidoc Full::Symbol::name

Paragraphs of this type document xsubs, and are associated with the xsubs by xsdocparse.pl. If the full symbol name is not included, the paragraph must be attached to the xsub declaration (no blank lines between =cut and the xsub).

Within the apidoc PODs, we recognize a few special directives (the "for\s+" is optional on these):

=for signature ...

Override the generated call signature with the ... text. If you include multiple signature directives, they will all be used. This is handy when you want to change the return type or list different ways to invoke an overloaded method, like this:

=for apidoc

=signature bool Class->foo

=signature ($thing, @other) = $object->foo ($it, $something)

Text in here is included in the generated documentation.
You can actually include signature and arg directives
at any point in this pod -- they are stripped after.
In fact, any pod is valid in here, until the =cut.

=cut
void foo (...)
    PPCODE:
       /* crazy code follows */
=for arg name (type) description
=for arg name description

The arg directive adds or overrides an argument description. The description text is optional, as is the type specification (the part in parentheses). The arg name does not need to include a sigil, as dollar signs will be added. FIXME what about @ for lists?

FUNCTIONS

xsdoc2pod ($datafile, $outdir='blib/lib', index=undef)

Given a $datafile containing the output of xsdocparse.pl, create in $outdir a pod file for each package, containing everything we can think of for that module. Output is controlled by the =for object directives and such in the source code.

If you don't want each package to create a separate pod file, then use this function's code as a starting point for your own pretty-printer.

add_types (@filenames)

Parse the given @filenames for entries to add to the %basic_types used for C type name to Perl package name mappings of types that are not registered with the Glib type system. The file format is dead simple: blank lines are ignored; /#.*$/ is stripped from each line as comments; the first token on each line is considered to be a C type name, and the remaining tokens are the description of that type. For example, a valid file may look like this:

# a couple of special types
FooBar      Foo::Bar
Frob        localized frobnicator

C type decorations such as "const" and "*" are implied (do not include them), and the _ornull variant is handled for you.

$string = podify_properties ($packagename)

Pretty-print the object properties owned by the Glib::Object derivative $packagename and return the text as a string. Returns undef if there are no properties or $package is not a Glib::Object.

$string = podify_values ($packagename)

List and pretty-print the values of the GEnum or GFlags type $packagename, and return the text as a string. Returns undef if $packagename isn't an enum or flags type.

$string = podify_signals ($packagename)

Query, list, and pretty-print the signals associated with $packagename. Returns the text as a string, or undef if there are no signals or $packagename is not a Glib::Object derivative.

$string = podify_pods ($pods, $position)

Helper function to allow specific placement of generic pod within the auto generated pages. Pod sections starting out with =for posistion XXX, where XXX is one of the following will be placed at a specified position. In the case of pod that is to be placed after a particular section that doesn't exist, that pod will be still be placed there.

This function is called at all of the specified points throught the process of generated pod for a page. Any pod matching the position passed will be returned, undef if no matches were found. If position is undef all pods without sepcific postion information will be returned. pods is a reference to an array of pod hashes.

  • SYNOPSIS

    After the NAME section

  • DESCRIPTION

    After the SYNOPSIS section.

  • post_hierarchy

    After the HIERARCHY section.

  • post_interfaces

    After the INTERFACE section.

  • post_methods

    After the METHODS section.

  • post_properties

    After the PROPERTIES section.

  • post_signals

    After the SIGNALS section.

  • post_enums

    After the ENUMS AND FLAGS section.

  • SEE_ALSO

    Replacing the autogenerated SEE ALSO section completely.

  • COPYRIGHT

    Replacing the autogenerated COPYRIGHT section completely.

$string = podify_ancestors ($packagename)

Pretty-prints the ancestry of $packagename from the Glib type system's point of view. This uses Glib::Type->list_ancestors; see that function's docs for an explanation of why that's different from looking at @ISA.

Returns the new text as a string, or undef if $packagename is not a registered GType.

$string = podify_interfaces ($packagename)

Pretty-print the list of GInterfaces that $packagename implements. Returns the text as a string, or undef if the type implements no interfaces.

$string = podify_methods ($packagename)

Call xsub_to_pod on all the xsubs under the key $packagename in the data extracted by xsdocparse.pl.

Returns the new text as a string, or undef if there are no xsubs in $packagename.

$string = podify_see_alsos (@entries)

Creates a list of links to be placed in the SEE ALSO section of the page. Returns undef if nothing is in the input list.

Returns a string that will/should be placed on each page. The package global variable COPYRIGHT can be used to override the text placed here. The package global variable AUTHORS should be set to the text to appear just after the year of the Copyright line, it defaults to Gtk2-Perl Team. The package gloabal variable MAIN_MOD should be set to a pod link pointing towards the main file for a package in which the full copyright appears. Finally the package global YEAR maybe set to the year to place in the copyright, default is to use current year.

To set AUTHORS, COPYRIGHT, and/or MAIN_MOD do something similar to the following in the first part of your postamble section in Makefile.PL. All of the weird escaping is require because this is going through several levels of variable expansion. All occurances of <br> are replaced with newlines.

POD_SET=\\\$\$Glib::GenPod::COPYRIGHT='Copyright 1999 team-foobar<br>LGPL';

Helpers

$perl_type = convert_type ($ctypestring)

Convert a C type name to a Perl type name.

Uses %Glib::GenPod::basic_types to look for some known basic types, and uses Glib::Type->package_from_cname to look up the registered package corresponding to a C type name. If no suitable mapping can be found, this just returns the input string.

$string = xsub_to_pod ($xsub, $sigprefix='')

Convert an xsub hash into a string of pod describing it. Includes the call signature, argument listing, and description, honoring special switches in the description pod (arg and signature overrides).

$string = compile_signature ($xsub)

Given an xsub hash, return a string with the call signature for that xsub.

$string = fixup_arg_name ($name)

Prepend a $ to anything that's not the literal ellipsis string '...'.

fixup_default

Mangle default parameter values from C to Perl values. Mostly, this does NULL => undef.

convert_arg_type

C type to Perl type conversion for argument types.

convert_return_type_to_name

C type to Perl type conversion suitable for return types.

SEE ALSO

Glib::ParseXSDoc

AUTHORS

muppet bashed out the xsub signature generation in a few hours on a wednesday night when band practice was cancelled at the last minute; he and ross mcfarland hacked this module together via irc and email over the next few days.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2003-2004 by the gtk2-perl team

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Lesser General Public License (LGPL). For more information, see http://www.fsf.org/licenses/lgpl.txt