1mdoc(1) General Commands Manual mdoc(1)
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6 mdoc - Mono documentation management tool
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9 mdoc command [options] [args]
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12 mdoc is an assembly-based documentation management system.
13 mdoc permits creating and updating documentation stubs based on the
15 contents of an assembly. It does not rely on documentation found
16 within the source code.
17 The advantages are:
19 * Code readability. Good documentation is frequently (a) verbose,
21 and (b) filled with examples. (For comparison, compare Micro‐
22 soft .NET Framework documentation, which is often a page or more
23 of docs for each member, to JavaDoc documentation, which can
24 often be a sentence for each member.)
25 Inserting good documentation into the source code can frequently
27 bloat the source file, as the documentation can be longer than
28 the actual method that is being documented.
29 * Localization. In-source documentation formats (such as csc
31 /doc) have no support for multiple human languages. If you need
32 to support more than one human language for documentation pur‐
33 poses, mdoc is useful as it permits each language's output to
34 reside in its own directory, and mdoc can add types/members for
35 each separate documentation directory.
36 * Administration. It's not unusual to have separate documentation
38 and development teams. It's also possible that the documenta‐
39 tion team will have minimal experience with the programming lan‐
40 guage being used. In such circumstances, inline documentation
41 is not desirable as the documentation team could inadvertantly
42 insert an error into the source code while updating the documen‐
43 tation. Alternatively, you may not want the documentation team
44 to have access to the source code for security reasons. mdoc
45 allows the documentation to be kept completely separate and dis‐
46 tinct from the source code used to create the assembly.
47 Documentation can be generated using the mdoc update command:
49 mdoc update -o docs/en ProjectName.dll
51 Once the documentation stubs have been generated (and hopefully later
53 filled in with actual documentation), there are three ways to view the
54 documentation:
55 * To generate a simple directory of HTML pages (one HTML file per
57 type), use mdoc export-html:
58 mdoc export-html -o /srv/www/htdocs/ProjectName docs/en
60 * To use an ASP.NET webapp to display the sources, see:
63 http://anonsvn.mono-project.com/source/trunk/mon‐
64 odoc/engine/web/.
65 From a monodoc source checkout, you can do this:
67 cd engine
69 make web
70 This will use xsp(1) to serve the ASP.NET webapp; Visit
72 http://localhost:8080/ to view the documentation.
73 * To use the monodoc(1) documentation browser, you must first
75 assemble the documentation:
76 mdoc assemble -o ProjectName docs/en
78 The above command creates the files ProjectName.tree and Pro‐
80 jectName.zip. An additional ProjectName.sources file must be
81 provided which describes where in the help system the documenta‐
82 tion should be hooked up; it is a very simple XML file, like
83 this:
84 <?xml version="1.0"?>
86 <monodoc>
87 <source provider="ecma" basefile="ProjectName"
88 path="various" />
89 </monodoc>
90 The above configuration file describes that the documentation is
92 in ECMA format, that the base file name is ProjectName and that
93 it should be hooked up in the "various" part of the documenta‐
94 tion tree. If you want to look at the various nodes defined in
95 the documentation, you can look at the monodoc.xml file which is
96 typically installed in /usr/lib/monodoc/monodoc.xml.
97 Once you have all of the required files (.zip, .tree and
99 .sources) you can install them into the system with the follow‐
100 ing command:
101 cp ProjectName.tree ProjectName.zip ProjectName.source \
103 `pkg-config monodoc --variable sourcesdir`
104 The above will copy the files into the directory that Monodoc
106 has registered; you might need root permissions to do this. The
107 actual directory is returned by the pkg-config invocation.
108
110 mdoc assemble
111 Compiles documentation for use within the monodoc(1) browser.
112 See the mdoc-assemble(1) man page for details.
114 mdoc export-html
116 Exports documentation into a directory structure of HTML files.
117 See the mdoc-export-html(1) man page for details.
119 mdoc export-msxdoc
121 Exports documentation into the single-file Microsoft XML Documenta‐
122 tion format.
123 See the mdoc-export-msxdoc(1) man page for details.
125 mdoc help
127 View internal help for a given command.
128 mdoc help assemble
130 is equivalent to:
132 mdoc assemble --help
134 Multiple sub-commands may be listed at once:
136 mdoc help assemble export-html update validate
138 mdoc update
140 Updates documentation, adding and removing members based upon a
141 reference assembly.
142 See the mdoc-update(1) man page for details.
144 mdoc validate
146 Validates the documentation against the Mono documentation schema.
147 See the mdoc-validate(1) man page for details.
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151 mdoc(5), mdoc-assemble(1), mdoc-export-html(1), mdoc-update(1), mdoc-
152 validate(1)
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155 Visit http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-docs-list for
156 details.
157
159 Visit http://www.mono-project.com/mdoc for details
160 mdoc(1)