Provided by: tcllib_1.17-dfsg-1_all 
NAME
doctools::toc - Holding tables of contents
SYNOPSIS
package require doctools::toc ?2?
package require Tcl 8.4
package require doctools::toc::structure
package require struct::tree
package require snit
::doctools::toc objectName
objectName method ?arg arg ...?
objectName destroy
objectName + reference id label docid desc
objectName + division id label ?docid?
objectName remove id
objectName up id
objectName next id
objectName prev id
objectName child id label ?...?
objectName element ?...?
objectName children id
objectName type id
objectName full-label id
objectName elabel id ?newlabel?
objectName description id ?newdesc?
objectName document id ?newdocid?
objectName title
objectName title text
objectName label
objectName label text
objectName importer
objectName importer object
objectName exporter
objectName exporter object
objectName deserialize = data ?format?
objectName deserialize += data ?format?
objectName serialize ?format?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
DESCRIPTION
This package provides a class to contain and programmatically manipulate tables of
contents.
This is one of the three public pillars the management of tables of contents resides on.
The other two pillars are
[1] Exporting tables of contents, and
[2] Importing tables of contents
For information about the Concepts of tables of contents, and their parts, see the same-
named section. For information about the data structure which is used to encode tables of
contents as values see the section ToC serialization format. This is the only format
directly known to this class. Conversions from and to any other format are handled by
export and import manager objects. These may be attached to a container, but do not have
to be, it is merely a convenience.
CONCEPTS
[1] A table of contents consists of a (possibly empty) list of elements.
[2] Each element in the list is identified by its label.
[3] Each element is either a reference, or a division.
[4] Each reference has an associated document, identified by a symbolic id, and a
textual description.
[5] Each division may have an associated document, identified by a symbolic id.
[6] Each division consists consists of a (possibly empty) list of elements, with each
element following the rules as specified in item 2 and above.
A few notes
[1] The above rules span up a tree of elements, with references as the leaf nodes, and
divisions as the inner nodes, and each element representing an entry in the whole
table of contents.
[2] The identifying labels of any element E are unique within their division (or toc),
and the full label of any element E is the list of labels for all nodes on the
unique path from the root of the tree to E, including E.
API
PACKAGE COMMANDS
::doctools::toc objectName
This command creates a new container 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.
OBJECT COMMAND
All objects created by the ::doctools::toc command have the following general form:
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.
OBJECT METHODS
objectName destroy
This method destroys the object it is invoked for.
objectName + reference id label docid desc
This method adds a new reference element to the table of contents, under the
element specified via its handle id. This parent element has to be a division
element, or the root. An error is thrown otherwise. The new element will be
externally identified by its label, which has to be be unique within the parent
element. An error is thrown otherwise.
As a reference element it will refer to a document identified by the symbolic
docid. This reference must not be the empty string, an error is thrown otherwise.
Beyond the label the element also has a longer descriptive string, supplied via
desc.
The result of the method is the handle (id) of the new element.
objectName + division id label ?docid?
This method adds a new division element to the table of contents, under the element
specified via its handle id. This parent element has to be a division element, or
the root. An error is thrown otherwise. The new element will be externally
identified by its label, which has to be be unique within the parent element. An
error is thrown otherwise.
As a division element it is can refer to a document, identified by the symbolic
docid, but may choose not to.
The result of the method is the handle (id) of the new element.
objectName remove id
This method removes the element identified by the handle id from the table of
contents. If the element is a division all of its children, if any, are removed as
well. The root element/division of the table of contents cannot be removed however,
only its children.
The result of the method is the empty string.
objectName up id
This method returns the handle of the parent for the element identified by its
handle id, or the empty string if id refered to the root element.
objectName next id
This method returns the handle of the right sibling for the element identified by
its handle id, or the handle of the parent if the element has no right sibling, or
the empty string if id refered to the root element.
objectName prev id
This method returns the handle of the left sibling for the element identified by
its handle id, or the handle of the parent if the element has no left sibling, or
the empty string if id refered to the root element.
objectName child id label ?...?
This method returns the handle of a child of the element identified by its handle
id. The child itself is identified by a series of labels.
objectName element ?...?
This method returns the handle of the element identified by a series of labels,
starting from the root of the table of contents. The series of labels is allowed to
be empty, in which case the handle of the root element is returned.
objectName children id
This method returns a list containing the handles of all children of the element
identified by the handle id, from first to last, in that order.
objectName type id
This method returns the type of the element, either reference, or division.
objectName full-label id
This method is the complement of the method element, converting the handle id of an
element into a list of labels full identifying the element within the whole table
of contents.
objectName elabel id ?newlabel?
This method queries and/or changes the label of the element identified by the
handle id. If the argument newlabel is present then the label is changed to that
value. Regardless of this, the result of the method is the current value of the
label.
If the label is changed the new label has to be unique within the containing
division, or an error is thrown.
Further, of the id refers to the root element of the table of contents, then using
this method is equivalent to using the method label, i.e. it is accessing the
global label for the whole table.
objectName description id ?newdesc?
This method queries and/or changes the description of the element identified by the
handle id. If the argument newdesc is present then the description is changed to
that value. Regardless of this, the result of the method is the current value of
the description.
The element this method operates on has to be a reference element, or an error will
be thrown.
objectName document id ?newdocid?
This method queries and/or changes the document reference of the element identified
by the handle id. If the argument newdocid is present then the description is
changed to that value. Regardless of this, the result of the method is the current
value of the document reference.
Setting the reference to the empty string means unsetting it, and is allowed only
for division elements. Conversely, if the result is the empty string then the
element has no document reference, and this can happen only for division elements.
objectName title
Returns the currently defined title of the table of contents.
objectName title text
Sets the title of the table of contents to text, and returns it as the result of
the command.
objectName label
Returns the currently defined label of the table of contents.
objectName label text
Sets the label of the table of contents to text, and returns it as the result of
the command.
objectName importer
Returns the import manager object currently attached to the container, if any.
objectName importer object
Attaches the object as import manager to the container, and returns it as the
result of the command. Note that the object is not put into ownership of the
container. I.e., destruction of the container will not destroy the object.
It is expected that object provides a method named import text which takes a text
and a format name, and returns the canonical serialization of the table of contents
contained in the text, assuming the given format.
objectName exporter
Returns the export manager object currently attached to the container, if any.
objectName exporter object
Attaches the object as export manager to the container, and returns it as the
result of the command. Note that the object is not put into ownership of the
container. I.e., destruction of the container will not destroy the object.
It is expected that object provides a method named export object which takes the
container and a format name, and returns a text encoding table of contents stored
in the container, in the given format. It is further expected that the object will
use the container's method serialize to obtain the serialization of the table of
contents from which to generate the text.
objectName deserialize = data ?format?
This method replaces the contents of the table object with the table contained in
the data. If no format was specified it is assumed to be the regular serialization
of a table of contents.
Otherwise the object will use the attached import manager to convert the data from
the specified format to a serialization it can handle. In that case an error will
be thrown if the container has no import manager attached to it.
The result of the method is the empty string.
objectName deserialize += data ?format?
This method behaves like deserialize = in its essentials, except that it merges the
table of contents in the data to its contents instead of replacing it. The method
will throw an error if merging is not possible, i.e. would produce an invalid
table. The existing content is left unchanged in that case.
The result of the method is the empty string.
objectName serialize ?format?
This method returns the table of contents contained in the object. If no format is
not specified the returned result is the canonical serialization of its contents.
Otherwise the object will use the attached export manager to convert the data to
the specified format. In that case an error will be thrown if the container has no
export manager attached to it.
TOC SERIALIZATION FORMAT
Here we specify the format used by the doctools v2 packages to serialize tables of
contents as immutable values for transport, comparison, etc.
We distinguish between regular and canonical serializations. While a table of contents
may have more than one regular serialization only exactly one of them will be canonical.
regular serialization
[1] The serialization of any table of contents is a nested Tcl dictionary.
[2] This dictionary holds a single key, doctools::toc, and its value. This value
holds the contents of the table of contents.
[3] The contents of the table of contents are a Tcl dictionary holding the title
of the table of contents, a label, and its elements. The relevant keys and
their values are
title The value is a string containing the title of the table of contents.
label The value is a string containing a label for the table of contents.
items The value is a Tcl list holding the elements of the table, in the
order they are to be shown.
Each element is a Tcl list holding the type of the item, and its
description, in this order. An alternative description would be that
it is a Tcl dictionary holding a single key, the item type, mapped to
the item description.
The two legal item types and their descriptions are
reference
This item describes a single entry in the table of contents,
referencing a single document. To this end its value is a Tcl
dictionary containing an id for the referenced document, a
label, and a longer textual description which can be
associated with the entry. The relevant keys and their values
are
id The value is a string containing the id of the document
associated with the entry.
label The value is a string containing a label for this
entry. This string also identifies the entry, and no
two entries (references and divisions) in the
containing list are allowed to have the same label.
desc The value is a string containing a longer description
for this entry.
division
This item describes a group of entries in the table of
contents, inducing a hierarchy of entries. To this end its
value is a Tcl dictionary containing a label for the group, an
optional id to a document for the whole group, and the list of
entries in the group. The relevant keys and their values are
id The value is a string containing the id of the document
associated with the whole group. This key is optional.
label The value is a string containing a label for the group.
This string also identifies the entry, and no two
entries (references and divisions) in the containing
list are allowed to have the same label.
items The value is a Tcl list holding the elements of the
group, in the order they are to be shown. This list
has the same structure as the value for the keyword
items used to describe the whole table of contents, see
above. This closes the recusrive definition of the
structure, with divisions holding the same type of
elements as the whole table of contents, including
other divisions.
canonical serialization
The canonical serialization of a table of contents has the format as specified in
the previous item, and then additionally satisfies the constraints below, which
make it unique among all the possible serializations of this table of contents.
[1] The keys found in all the nested Tcl dictionaries are sorted in ascending
dictionary order, as generated by Tcl's builtin command lsort -increasing
-dict.
BUGS, IDEAS, FEEDBACK
This document, and the package it describes, will undoubtedly contain bugs and other
problems. Please report such in the category doctools of the Tcllib Trackers
[http://core.tcl.tk/tcllib/reportlist]. Please also report any ideas for enhancements you
may have for either package and/or documentation.
KEYWORDS
HTML, TMML, conversion, doctoc markup, documentation, formatting, generation, json, latex,
markup, nroff, parsing, plugin, reference, table, table of contents, tcler's wiki, text,
wiki
CATEGORY
Documentation tools
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2009 Andreas Kupries <andreas_kupries@users.sourceforge.net>