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::doctools::new objectName ?option value...?

This command creates a new doctools object with an associated 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.

The options and their values coming after the name of the object are used to set the initial configuration of the object.

::doctools::help

This is a convenience command for applications wishing to provide their user with a short description of the available formatting commands and their meanings. It returns a string containing a standard help text.

::doctools::search path

Whenever an object created by this the package has to map the name of a format to the file containing the code for its formatting engine it will search for the file in a number of directories stored in a list. See section Format Mapping for more explanations.

This list not only contains three default directories which are declared by the package itself, but is also extensible user of the package. This command is the means to do so. When given a path to an existing and readable directory it will prepend that directory to the list of directories to search. This means that the path added last is later searched through first.

An error will be thrown if the path either does not exist, is not a directory, or is not readable.

All commands created by ::doctools::new have the following general form and may be used to invoke various operations on their doctools converter object.

objectName method ?arg arg ...?

The method method and its arg'uments determine the exact behavior of the command. See section Object Methods for the detailed specifications.

objectName configure

The method returns a list of all known options and their current values when called without any arguments.

objectName configure option

The method behaves like the method cget when called with a single argument and returns the value of the option specified by said argument.

objectName configure -option value...

The method reconfigures the specified options of the object, setting them to the associated values, when called with an even number of arguments, at least two.

The legal options are described in the section Object Configuration.

objectName cget -option

This method expects a legal configuration option as argument and will return the current value of that option for the object the method was invoked for.

The legal configuration options are described in section Object Configuration.

objectName destroy

This method destroys the object it is invoked for.

objectName format text

This method runs the text through the configured formatting engine and returns the generated string as its result. An error will be thrown if no -format was configured for the object.

The method assumes that the text is in doctools format as specified in the companion document doctools_fmt. Errors will be thrown otherwise.

objectName map symbolic actual

This methods add one entry to the per-object mapping from symbolic filenames to the actual uris. The object just stores this mapping and makes it available to the configured formatting engine through the command dt_fmap. This command is described in more detail in the doctools plugin API reference which specifies the interaction between the objects created by this package and doctools formatting engines.

objectName parameters

This method returns a list containing the names of all engine parameters provided by the configured formatting engine. It will return an empty list if the object is not yet configured for a specific format.

objectName search path

This method extends the per-object list of paths searched for doctools formatting engines. See also the command ::doctools::search on how to extend the per-package list of paths. Note that the path entered last will be searched first. For more details see section Format Mapping.

objectName setparam name value

This method sets the named engine parameter to the specified value. It will throw an error if the object is either not yet configured for a specific format, or if the formatting engine for the configured format does not provide a parameter with the given name. The list of parameters provided by the configured formatting engine can be retrieved through the method parameters.

objectName warnings

This method returns a list containing all the warnings which were generated by the configured formatting engine during the last invocation of the method format.

All doctools objects understand the following configuration options:

-file file

The argument of this option is stored in the object and made available to the configured formatting engine through the commands dt_file and dt_mainfile. These commands are described in more detail in the companion document doctools_api which specifies the API between the object and formatting engines.

The default value of this option is the empty string.

The configured formatting engine should interpret the value as the name of the file containing the document which is currently processed.

-ibase file

The argument of this option is stored in the object and used as the base path for resolution of relative include paths. If this option is not set (empty string) the value of -file is used instead.

Note that -file and -ibase, while similar looking, are actually very different. The value of -file is used by some engines for the generation of proper relative references between output documents (HTML). As such this is a destination path. The -ibase on the other hand is used to resolve relative include paths, and as such deals with source paths.

The default value of this option is the empty string.

-module text

The argument of this option is stored in the object and made available to the configured formatting engine through the command dt_module. This command is described in more detail in the companion document doctools_api which specifies the API between the object and formatting engines.

The default value of this option is the empty string.

The configured formatting engine should interpret the value as the name of the module the file containing the document which is currently processed belongs to.

-format text

The argument of this option specifies the format to generate and by implication the formatting engine to use when converting text via the method format. Its default value is the empty string. The method format cannot be used if this option is not set to a valid value at least once.

The package will immediately try to map the given name to a file containing the code for a formatting engine generating that format. An error will be thrown if this mapping fails. In that case a previously configured format is left untouched.

The section Format Mapping explains in detail how the package and object will look for engine implementations.

-deprecated boolean

This option is a boolean flag. The object will generate warnings if this flag is set and the text given to method format contains the deprecated markup command strong. Its default value is FALSE. In other words, no warnings will be generated.

-copyright text

The argument of this option is stored in the object and made available to the configured formatting engine through the command dt_copyright. This command is described in more detail in the companion document doctools_api which specifies the API between the object and formatting engines.

The default value of this option is the empty string.

The configured formatting engine should interpret the value as a copyright assignment for the document which is currently processed, or the package described by it.

This information must be used if and only if the engine is unable to find any copyright assignments within the document itself. Such are specified by the formatting command copyright. This command is described in more detail in the companion document doctools_fmt which specifies the doctools format itself.

The package and object will perform the following algorithm when trying to map a format name foo to a file containing an implementation of a formatting engine for foo:

[1]

If foo is the name of an existing file then this file is directly taken as the implementation.

[2]

If not, the list of per-object search paths is searched. For each directory in the list the package checks if that directory contains a file "fmt.foo". If yes, then that file is taken as the implementation.

Note that this list of paths is initially empty and can be extended through the object method search.

[3]

If not, the list of package paths is searched. For each directory in the list the package checks if that directory contains a file "fmt.foo". If yes, then that file is taken as the implementation.

This list of paths can be extended through the command ::doctools::search. It contains initially one path, the subdirectory "mpformats" of the directory the package itself is located in. In other words, if the package implementation "doctools.tcl" is installed in the directory "/usr/local/lib/tcllib/doctools" then it will by default search the directory "/usr/local/lib/tcllib/doctools/mpformats" for format implementations.

[4]

The mapping fails.