

7.9.2 library man pages

Two global definitions are required, and then one library man page is produced for each export_func definition that is found. It is generally convenient to place these definitions as `getdefs' comments (see section 8.5 Invoking getdefs) near the procedure definition, but they may also be a separate AutoGen definitions file (see section 2. AutoGen Definitions File). Each function will be cross referenced with their sister functions in a `SEE ALSO' section. A global see_also definition will be appended to this cross referencing text.

The two global definitions required are:

library This is the name of your library, without the `lib' prefix. The AutoOpts library is named `libopts.so...', so the library attribute would have the value opts.
header Generally, using a library with a compiled program entails #include-ing a header file. Name that header with this attribute. In the case of AutoOpts, it is generated and will vary based on the name of the option definition file. Consequently, `your-opts.h' is specified.

The export_func definition should contain the following attributes:

name The name of the procedure the library user may call.
what A brief sentence describing what the procedure does.
doc A detailed description of what the procedure does. It may ramble on for as long as necessary to properly describe it.
err A short description of how errors are handled.
ret_type The data type returned by the procedure. Omit this for void procedures.
ret_desc Describe what the returned value is, if needed.
private If specified, the function will not be documented. This is used, for example, to produce external declarations for functions that are not available for public use, but are used in the generated text.
arg This is a compound attribute that contains:
arg_type The data type of the argument.
arg_name A short name for it.
arg_desc A brief description.

As a `getdefs' comment, this would appear something like this:

/*=--subblock=arg=arg_type,arg_name,arg_desc =*/
 * library: opts
 * header:  your-opts.h
/*=export_func optionProcess
 * what: this is the main option processing routine
 * arg:  + tOptions* + pOpts + program options descriptor +
 * arg:  + int       + argc  + program arg count  +
 * arg:  + char**    + argv  + program arg vector +
 * ret_type:  int
 * ret_desc:  the count of the arguments processed
 * doc:  This is what it does.
 * err:  When it can't, it does this.

Note the subblock and library comments. subblock is an embedded `getdefs' option (see section 8.5.6 subblock option) that tells it how to parse the arg attribute. The library and header entries are global definitions that apply to all the documented functions.


This document was generated by Bruce Korb on February 17, 2003 using texi2html

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