Ubuntu Manpage: doctools::toc::structure - Doctoc serialization utilities

NAME

       doctools::toc::structure - Doctoc serialization utilities

SYNOPSIS

       package require doctools::toc::structure  ?0.1?

       package require Tcl  8.4

       package require logger

       package require snit

       ::doctools::toc::structure verify serial ?canonvar?

       ::doctools::toc::structure verify-as-canonical serial

       ::doctools::toc::structure canonicalize serial

       ::doctools::toc::structure print serial

       ::doctools::toc::structure merge seriala serialb

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

DESCRIPTION

       This  package  provides  commands to work with the serializations of tables of contents as managed by the
       doctools system v2, and specified in section ToC serialization format.

       This is an internal package of doctools, for use by the higher level packages handling tables of contents
       and their conversion into and out of various other formats, like documents written using doctoc markup.

API

::doctools::toc::structure verify serial ?canonvar?
This command verifies that the content of serial is a valid regular serialization of a table of
contents and will throw an error if that is not the case. The result of the command is the empty
string.

If the argument canonvar is specified it is interpreted as the name of a variable in the calling
context. This variable will be written to if and only if serial is a valid regular serialization.
Its value will be a boolean, with True indicating that the serialization is not only valid, but
also canonical. False will be written for a valid, but non-canonical serialization.

For the specification of regular and canonical serializations see the section ToC serialization
format.

::doctools::toc::structure verify-as-canonical serial
This command verifies that the content of serial is a valid canonical serialization of a table of
contents and will throw an error if that is not the case. The result of the command is the empty
string.

For the specification of canonical serializations see the section ToC serialization format.

::doctools::toc::structure canonicalize serial
This command assumes that the content of serial is a valid regular serialization of a table of
contents and will throw an error if that is not the case.

It will then convert the input into the canonical serialization of the contained table of contents
and return it as its result. If the input is already canonical it will be returned unchanged.

For the specification of regular and canonical serializations see the section ToC serialization
format.

::doctools::toc::structure print serial
This command assumes that the argument serial contains a valid regular serialization of a table of
contents and returns a string containing that table in a human readable form.

The exact format of this form is not specified and cannot be relied on for parsing or other
machine-based activities.

For the specification of regular serializations see the section ToC serialization format.

::doctools::toc::structure merge seriala serialb
This command accepts the regular serializations of two tables of contents and uses them to create
their union. The result of the command is the canonical serialization of this unified table of
contents.

Title and label of the resulting table are taken from the table contained in serialb.

The whole table and its divisions are merged recursively in the same manner:

[1] All reference elements which occur in both divisions (identified by their label) are
unified with document id's and descriptions taken from the second table.

[2] All division elements which occur in both divisions (identified by their label) are unified
with the optional document id taken from the second table, if any, or from the first if
none is in the second. The elements in the division are merged recursively using the same
algorithm as described in this list.

[3] Type conflicts between elements, i.e. finding two elements with the same label but
different types result in a merge error.

[4] All elements found in the second division but not in the first are added to the end of the
list of elements in the merge result.

For the specification of regular and canonical serializations see the section ToC serialization format.

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

       deserialization, doctoc, doctools, serialization

COPYRIGHT

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