Re: [boost] Reference documentation: one approach

From: Anthony Williams (anthony.williamsNOSPAM_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-11-05 04:29:43

Douglas Gregor writes:
 > On Monday 04 November 2002 10:45 am, Anthony Williams wrote:
 > > As a test, I have a LaTeX stylesheet that converts the following into
 > > syntactically-valid, but poorly formatted, C++:
 > 
 > Great. I've got a few questions, of course:
 > 
 > 1) If I mangle the input in LaTeX (forget a '}', perhaps), is it easy to 
 > decipher and fix the error? (I've used LaTeX quite a bit, and have had bad 
 > experiences with the error mesages)

Generally you get "Runaway argument?" with a quote of the appropriate part of
the document, if you miss off a '}'.

For lots of errors, you get a source line number too.
 
 > 2) Is it reasonable to do the same type of formatting that the XSLT version 
 > does? For instance, I think we'd like to have the synopsis prior to each 
 > reference section with links to the reference section, keyword highlighting 
 > in C++ sources, etc. I'm sure all these can be done, but I just want 
 > confirmation :)

Having the synopsis prior to the reference section can be done --- I'd just
have to steal the technique used for generating a table-of-contents from the
section headings, and use the hyperref package for the hyperlinks.

Keyword highlighting can also be done, as other packages do it.
 
 > 3) Can we see the source for the stylesheet you already have, to perhaps 
 > compare the relative difficulty?

Attached is the code for "boost.sty" as it stands. It is pretty grotty LaTeX
code, but it works. I expect someone more experienced than I could come up
with some better code.



Anthony
-- 
Anthony Williams
Senior Software Engineer, Beran Instruments Ltd.
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