[fpc-devel] FPDoc sources

[Marco van de Voort]

In our previous episode, Graeme Geldenhuys said:
> >> I beg to differ. Seeing the signature of a method, procedure, function
> >> etc is valuable information to a developer.
> >
> > True. But that doesn't make it important to be in every fileformat.
> 
> I don't understand your statement about "every file format".

The bit is that the .XML not having this info is something else then the
backend not having it.

>  Do you meant fpdoc output formats?  If so, why would you want limited
> information in one format, but not in another format?

To avoid duplication of information (make change in pascal source of
declaration, and have to make it in the .XML source) of course. Duh!

And this means that the representation of the sources (the declarations)
adapt if the FPC parser or fpdoc output generated is improved. Not exactly a
theoretic case either.

> > if you have an IDE that can't parse the source to get that info, you
> > could develop a fairly simple fpdoc backend to generate a helper file
> > for the IDE.
> 
> An interesting idea.

Or one could stream the entire tree to some XML (just like .xct)

More or less that would make .xct the stuff fpdoc needs, and the secondary
(and much bigger XML) some format that IDEs could import for own purposes.

Such schemes are discussible IMHO, if describes a clear case and wants to do
the work.

But I haven't seen an actual problem described in this thread, just random
bits of problems which till now sound more "invented" then real.

IMHO both Dodi and you should take a step back and describe problems (or
maybe even the usecase that is not possible now). Not try to argument on
vague principles.

> > No. You can also get it from the .xct's,
> 
> Yes, but the XCT files are generated by fpdoc as it parses the source code.

Sure. And what is the trouble with that?
 
> Can you tell fpdoc to not generate an XCT, and then you manually
> create such a file from scratch using a text editor [which fpdoc can
> use]?  Is so, the latter would be a huge waist of somebody's time.

I have no idea what you are hinting at here. You can build the rtl and fcl
via separate makefile targets I guess if you want to processing inbetween,
but I think you should start with the actual problem, not with a possible
(and terribly hackish) solution.