Ubuntu Manpage: doctools::toc::export::nroff

NAME

       doctools::toc::export::nroff - nroff export plugin

SYNOPSIS

       package require Tcl  8.4

       package require doctools::toc::export::nroff  ?0.2?

       package require doctools::text

       package require doctools::nroff::man_macros

       export serial configuration

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

DESCRIPTION

       This package implements the doctools table of contents export plugin for the generation of nroff markup.

       This  is an internal package of doctools, for use by the higher level management packages handling tables
       of contents, especially doctools::toc::export, the export manager.

       Using it from a regular interpreter is possible, however only with contortions, and is  not  recommended.
       The  proper  way  to  use  this functionality is through the package doctools::toc::export and the export
       manager objects it provides.

API

       The API provided by this package satisfies the specification of the doctoc export plugin API version 2.

       export serial configuration
              This command takes the canonical serialization of a table of contents, as specified in section ToC
              serialization  format,  and  contained  in  serial, the configuration, a dictionary, and generates
              nroff markup encoding the table.  The created string  is  then  returned  as  the  result  of  the
              command.

CONFIGURATION

       The  nroff  export  plugin  recognizes the following configuration variables and changes its behaviour as
       they specify.

       string user
              This standard configuration variable contains the name of  the  user  running  the  process  which
              invoked  the  export  plugin.  The plugin puts this information into the provenance comment at the
              beginning of the generated document.

       string file
              This standard configuration variable contains the name of the file  the  table  of  contents  came
              from. This variable may not be set or contain the empty string.  The plugin puts this information,
              if defined, i.e. set and not the empty string, into the provenance comment at the beginning of the
              generated document.

       boolean inline
              If  this flag is set (default) the plugin will place the definitions of the man macro set directly
              into the output.

              If this flag is not set, the plugin will place a reference to the definitions of the man macro set
              into the output, but not the macro definitions themselves.

       Note that this plugin ignores the standard configuration variables format, and map, and their values.

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.

       When proposing code changes, please provide unified diffs, i.e the output of diff -u.

       Note further that attachments are strongly preferred over inlined patches. Attachments  can  be  made  by
       going  to the Edit form of the ticket immediately after its creation, and then using the left-most button
       in the secondary navigation bar.

KEYWORDS

       doctools, export, nroff, serialization, table of contents, toc

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (c) 2009-2019 Andreas Kupries <andreas_kupries@users.sourceforge.net>