NAME

       mdoc - Mono documentation management tool

SYNOPSIS

       mdoc command [options] [args]

OVERVIEW

       mdoc is an assembly-based documentation management system.

       mdoc  permits  creating  and  updating  documentation  stubs  based  on the contents of an
       assembly.  It does not rely on documentation found within the source code.

       The advantages are:

       *      Code readability.  Good documentation is frequently (a)  verbose,  and  (b)  filled
              with  examples.   (For  comparison, compare Microsoft .NET Framework documentation,
              which is often a page or more of docs for each member,  to  JavaDoc  documentation,
              which can often be a sentence for each member.)

              Inserting  good  documentation into the source code can frequently bloat the source
              file, as the documentation can be longer than  the  actual  method  that  is  being
              documented.

       *      Localization.   In-source  documentation formats (such as csc /doc) have no support
              for multiple human languages.  If you need to support more than one human  language
              for  documentation purposes, mdoc is useful as it permits each language's output to
              reside in its own directory, and mdoc  can  add  types/members  for  each  separate
              documentation directory.

       *      Administration.   It's  not  unusual to have separate documentation and development
              teams.  It's also possible that the documentation team will have minimal experience
              with   the   programming  language  being  used.   In  such  circumstances,  inline
              documentation is not desirable as the documentation team could inadvertantly insert
              an error into the source code while updating the documentation.  Alternatively, you
              may not want the documentation team to have access to the source code for  security
              reasons.  mdoc allows the documentation to be kept completely separate and distinct
              from the source code used to create the assembly.

       Documentation can be generated using the mdoc update command:

           mdoc update -o docs/en ProjectName.dll

       Once the documentation stubs have been generated  (and  hopefully  later  filled  in  with
       actual documentation), there are three ways to view the documentation:

       *      To  generate  a  simple  directory of HTML pages (one HTML file per type), use mdoc
              export-html:

                  mdoc export-html -o /srv/www/htdocs/ProjectName docs/en

       *      To use  an  ASP.NET  webapp  to  display  the  sources,  see:  http://anonsvn.mono-
              project.com/source/trunk/monodoc/engine/web/.

              From a monodoc source checkout, you can do this:

                  cd engine
                  make web

              This  will  use xsp(1) to serve the ASP.NET webapp; Visit http://localhost:8080/ to
              view the documentation.

       *      To  use  the  monodoc(1)  documentation  browser,  you  must  first  assemble   the
              documentation:

                  mdoc assemble -o ProjectName docs/en

              The  above  command  creates  the  files  ProjectName.tree and ProjectName.zip.  An
              additional ProjectName.sources file must be provided which describes where  in  the
              help  system  the  documentation should be hooked up; it is a very simple XML file,
              like this:

                  <?xml version="1.0"?>
                  <monodoc>
                    <source provider="ecma" basefile="ProjectName"
                      path="various" />
                  </monodoc>

              The above configuration file describes that the documentation is  in  ECMA  format,
              that  the  base  file  name  is  ProjectName and that it should be hooked up in the
              "various" part of the documentation tree.  If you want to look at the various nodes
              defined  in  the  documentation,  you  can  look  at  the monodoc.xml file which is
              typically installed in /usr/lib/monodoc/monodoc.xml.

              Once you have all of the required files (.zip, .tree and .sources) you can  install
              them into the system with the following command:

                  cp ProjectName.tree ProjectName.zip ProjectName.source \
                    `pkg-config monodoc --variable sourcesdir`

              The  above  will copy the files into the directory that Monodoc has registered; you
              might need root permissions to do this.  The actual directory is  returned  by  the
              pkg-config invocation.

MDOC COMMANDS

       mdoc assemble
           Compiles documentation for use within the monodoc(1) browser.

           See the mdoc-assemble(1) man page for details.

       mdoc export-html
           Exports documentation into a directory structure of HTML files.

           See the mdoc-export-html(1) man page for details.

       mdoc export-msxdoc
           Exports documentation into the single-file Microsoft XML Documentation format.

           See the mdoc-export-msxdoc(1) man page for details.

       mdoc help
           View internal help for a given command.

               mdoc help assemble

           is equivalent to:

               mdoc assemble --help

           Multiple sub-commands may be listed at once:

               mdoc help assemble export-html update validate

       mdoc update
           Updates documentation, adding and removing members based upon a reference assembly.

           See the mdoc-update(1) man page for details.

       mdoc validate
           Validates the documentation against the Mono documentation schema.

           See the mdoc-validate(1) man page for details.

SEE ALSO

       mdoc(5), mdoc-assemble(1), mdoc-export-html(1), mdoc-update(1), mdoc-validate(1)

MAILING LISTS

       Visit http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-docs-list for details.

WEB SITE

       Visit http://www.mono-project.com/mdoc for details

                                                                                          mdoc(1)