Hi,

I am trying to setup some script(s) or a Makefile (if I can) to handle the documentation of tiOPF (open source project I work on and core of our projects).

* How does FPC handle the creation of html output using fpdoc? From what I can see it looks like everything is handled in a single Makefile.fpc (quite complex but guess it work well)

* How does it handle updates to the source code, without overwriting existing *.xml files.

* If running makeskel in update mode, how do you combine that *.xml file to the existing description *.xml file?

* Is all the above done in some nightly event (automagically)...?

So far I have created the following directory layout. I can only modify the Docs directory, the others are cast in stone. I had a look at the Lazarus docs layout as well, for some ideas. If I could automate the creation and updating of docs in some nightly event, it would be a perfect world! ;-)

tiOPF
/Docs
/html <==== generate html from fpdoc
/xml
/build_core.sh <===== 3 build scripts
/build_gui.sh
/build_options.sh
/core
/examples <==== small code samples
/tiobjects.xml <==== xml documentation
<... *.xml ...> <==== all other .xml files /gui
/examples
/tiobjects.xml
<... *.xml ...>
/options
/examples
/tiobjects.xml
<... *.xml ...>
/Source
/Core
/tiObjects.pas <==== all core source code <... *.pas ...>
/Options
/tiSomeOptions.pas <==== all options source code <... *.pas ...>
/GUI
/tiGUIUtils.pas <==== all gui components source code <... *.pas ...>

Regards,
- Graeme -

I'm not sure I understand the question ? Are you referring to the makefile.fpc in the docs dir ?

* How does it handle updates to the source code, without overwriting existing *.xml files.

Makeskel accepts an output parameter. Make sure it is not equal to the input file...

* If running makeskel in update mode, how do you combine that *.xml file to the existing description *.xml file?

Copy and paste.

It cannot be done automatically, because the file is not perfect: e.g. presence of unit reference elements is not correctly processed.

In theory, you could make a mergefpdoc program which merges 2 documents. I just didn't get around to doing it.

* Is all the above done in some nightly event (automagically)...?

No, but it could be done.

If you can write the 'mergefpdoc' program, then it should be possible to automate everything.

Michael.

Yes, I downloaded all fpcdocs from SubVersion. It contains *.tex, *.xml, etc. One of those files in the root directory was Makefile.fpc and referred to makeskel and fpdoc. My knowledge of Makefiles are very limited. I will try and get my docs generated with simple bash scripts first, then work though that Makefile in fpcdocs and see if I can make any sense of it. :-)

Makeskel accepts an output parameter. Make sure it is not equal to the input file...

So you only generate the initial *.xml files once. After that you always run makeskel in "update" mode with different filenames for output.

> * Is all the above done in some nightly event (automagically)...? No, but it could be done.

Okay, this makes me feel a little better. :-) I will start my scripts off manually and over time, see what processes I could automate. It sounds the easiest to implement.

Regards,
- Graeme -