docs/docbook-cheat-sheet/docbook-cheat-sheet.xml

   1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
   2 <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
   3    "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">
   4
   5 <article id="docbook-cheat-sheet">
   6
   7   <articleinfo>
   8     <title>Using DocBook to write GHC documentation</title>
   9     <author><othername>The GHC Team</othername></author>
  10     <address><email>glasgow-haskell-&lcub;users,bugs&rcub;@dcs.gla.ac.uk</email></address>
  11     <pubdate>January 2000</pubdate>
  12   </articleinfo>
  13
  14   <sect1 id="sec-getting-docbook">
  15     <title>Getting the DocBook tools</title>
  16     <para>See the installation guide.</para>
  17   </sect1>
  18
  19   <sect1 id="doc-layout">
  20     <title>Document layout</title>
  21
  22     <para>The GHC documentation is written using DocBook XML V4.2, so
  23     the first few lines should look like this:</para>
  24
  25 <programlisting>
  26 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
  27 &lt;!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
  28    "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">
  29 </programlisting>
  30
  31     <para>The encoding can of course be chosen according to taste.</para>
  32
  33     <para> This guide is <emphasis>not</emphasis> meant to teach you
  34     how to write DocBook; read the <ulink
  35     url="http://www.docbook.org/">DocBook book</ulink> for that. It is
  36     more of a reference than a tutorial, so see the <ulink
  37     url="http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/">DocBook home page</ulink>
  38     for other links.</para>
  39
  40     <para>However, by popular demand, here are some useful points:
  41     </para>
  42
  43     <itemizedlist>
  44       <listitem>
  45         <para>Remember to use <sgmltag class="starttag">para</sgmltag>
  46         inside <sgmltag class="starttag">listitem</sgmltag>s.</para>
  47       </listitem>
  48     </itemizedlist>
  49
  50     <para>The rest of this section outlines the use of several tags
  51     which may not be obvious (DocBook is rather scholastic in style:
  52     it has tags for many things from C function prototypes to keyboard
  53     bindings; at the same time it has many omissions and
  54     oddities). The current scheme has many infelicities, partly
  55     because it was dreamt up in a hurry while the author was learning
  56     DocBook and converting the documentation thereto, and partly
  57     because DocBook is rather C-centric.</para>
  58
  59     <variablelist>
  60
  61       <varlistentry>
  62         <term>Comments</term>
  63         <listitem>
  64           <para>Comments in XML look like this: <sgmltag
  65           class="sgmlcomment">This is a comment</sgmltag>.</para>
  66         </listitem>
  67       </varlistentry>
  68
  69       <varlistentry>
  70         <term><sgmltag class="starttag">command</sgmltag></term>
  71         <listitem>
  72           <para>Used for commands typed into interactive sessions
  73           (e.g. <command>cp foo bar</command> and the names of
  74           programs such as <command>gmake</command>.</para>
  75         </listitem>
  76       </varlistentry>
  77
  78       <varlistentry>
  79         <term><sgmltag class="starttag">constant</sgmltag></term>
  80         <listitem>
  81           <para>Used for system constants such as
  82           <constant>U_MAXINT</constant> and
  83           <filename>Makefile</filename> variables like
  84           <constant>SRC_FILES</constant> (because they are usually
  85           constant for a given run of <command>make</command>, and
  86           hence have a constant feel to them).</para>
  87         </listitem>
  88       </varlistentry>
  89
  90       <varlistentry>
  91         <term><sgmltag class="starttag">email</sgmltag></term>
  92         <listitem>
  93           <para>For email addresses. This is a tag that's easy to
  94           overlook if you don't know it's there.</para>
  95         </listitem>
  96       </varlistentry>
  97
  98       <varlistentry>
  99         <term><sgmltag class="starttag">filename</sgmltag></term>
 100         <listitem>
 101           <para>Used for paths, filenames, file extensions.</para>
 102         </listitem>
 103       </varlistentry>
 104
 105       <varlistentry>
 106         <term><sgmltag class="starttag">function</sgmltag></term>
 107         <listitem>
 108           <para>Used for functions and constructors.</para>
 109         </listitem>
 110       </varlistentry>
 111
 112       <varlistentry>
 113         <term><sgmltag class="starttag">indexterm</sgmltag></term>
 114         <listitem>
 115           <para>The normal way to mark up an index term is
 116           <literal>&lt;indexterm&gt;&lt;primary&gt;term&lt;/primary&gt;&lt;/indexterm&gt;</literal>.</para>
 117         </listitem>
 118       </varlistentry>
 119
 120       <varlistentry>
 121         <term><sgmltag class="starttag">keycap</sgmltag></term>
 122         <term><sgmltag class="starttag">keycombo</sgmltag></term>
 123         <listitem>
 124           <para>Some more tags you may miss. Used for combinations
 125           such as
 126           <keycombo><keycap>Control</keycap><keycap>D</keycap></keycombo>.</para>
 127         </listitem>
 128       </varlistentry>
 129
 130       <varlistentry>
 131         <term><sgmltag class="starttag">literal</sgmltag></term>
 132         <listitem>
 133           <para>Used for everything that should appear in typewriter
 134           font that has no other obvious tag: types, monads, small
 135           snippets of program text that are formatted inline, and the
 136           like.</para>
 137         </listitem>
 138       </varlistentry>
 139
 140       <varlistentry>
 141         <term><sgmltag class="starttag">option</sgmltag></term>
 142         <listitem>
 143           <para>Used for compiler options and similar.</para>
 144         </listitem>
 145       </varlistentry>
 146
 147       <varlistentry>
 148         <term><sgmltag class="starttag">programlisting</sgmltag></term>
 149         <listitem>
 150           <para>For displayed program listings (including shell
 151           scripts).</para>
 152         </listitem>
 153       </varlistentry>
 154
 155       <varlistentry>
 156         <term><sgmltag class="starttag">screen</sgmltag></term>
 157         <listitem>
 158           <para>For displayed screen dumps, such as portions of shell
 159           interaction. It's easy to tell the difference between these
 160           and shell scripts: the latter lack a shell prompt.</para>
 161         </listitem>
 162       </varlistentry>
 163
 164       <varlistentry>
 165         <term><sgmltag class="starttag">varname</sgmltag></term>
 166         <listitem>
 167           <para>Used for variables, but not type variables.</para>
 168         </listitem>
 169       </varlistentry>
 170
 171     </variablelist>
 172
 173   </sect1>
 174
 175   <sect1 id="docbook-tables">
 176     <title>Tables</title>
 177
 178     <para>Tables are quite complicated to write in DocBook XML (as in HTML,
 179     there are lots of fiddly tags), so here's an example you can
 180     cannibalise. In the spirit of the LaTeX short introduction I don't
 181     repeat all the markup verbatim; you have to look at the source for
 182     that.</para>
 183
 184     <informaltable>
 185       <tgroup cols="3">
 186         <colspec colname="one" align="left" colsep="0"/>
 187         <colspec colname="two" align="center" colsep="0"/>
 188         <colspec colname="three" align="right" colsep="0"/>
 189         <tbody>
 190
 191           <row>
 192             <entry>Here's</entry>
 193             <entry>a sample</entry>
 194             <entry>table</entry>
 195           </row>
 196
 197           <row>
 198             <entry>With differently</entry>
 199             <entry>aligned</entry>
 200             <entry>cells</entry>
 201           </row>
 202
 203           <row>
 204             <entry namest="one" nameend="three" morerows="1">
 205               <para> There's not much else to it. Entries can span
 206               both extra rows and extra columns; just be careful when
 207               using block markup (such as <sgmltag
 208               class="starttag">para</sgmltag>s) within an <sgmltag
 209               class="starttag">entry</sgmltag> that there is no space
 210               between the open and close <sgmltag
 211               class="starttag">entry</sgmltag> tags and the adjacent
 212               text, as otherwise you will suffer from <ulink
 213               url="http://www.docbook.org/tdg/html/entry.html">Pernicious
 214               Mixed Content</ulink> (the parser will think you're
 215               using inline markup).</para>
 216             </entry>
 217           </row>
 218
 219         </tbody>
 220       </tgroup>
 221     </informaltable>
 222   </sect1>
 223 </article>