= Developer Introduction

So you want to write a generator, fix a bug, or otherwise work with RDoc.  This
document provides an overview of how RDoc works from parsing options to
generating output.  Most of the documentation can be found in the specific
classes for each feature.

== Bugs

If you think you found a bug, file a ticket on the {issues
tracker}[https://github.com/rdoc/rdoc/issues] on github.

To get your bug fixed as fast as possible please include a sample file that
illustrates the problem or link to a repository and include steps to reproduce
the issue.  Here are some examples of good issues:

* https://github.com/rdoc/rdoc/issues/55
* https://github.com/rdoc/rdoc/issues/61

== Plugins

When 'rdoc/rdoc' is loaded RDoc looks for 'rdoc/discover' files in your
installed gems.  This can be used to load parsers, alternate generators, or
additional preprocessor directives.  An rdoc plugin layout should look
something like this:

  lib/rdoc/discover.rb
  lib/my/rdoc/plugin.rb
  # etc.

In your rdoc/discover.rb file you will want to wrap the loading of your plugin
in an RDoc version check like this:

  begin
    gem 'rdoc', '~> 3'
    require 'my/rdoc/plugin'
  rescue Gem::LoadError
  end

=== Plugin Types

In RDoc you can change the following behaviors:

* Add a parser for a new file format
* Add a new output generator
* Add a new markup directive
* Add a new type of documentation markup
* Add a new type of formatter

All of these are described below

== Option Parsing

Option parsing is handled by RDoc::Options.  When you're writing a generator
you can provide the user with extra options by providing a class method
+setup_options+.  The option parser will call this after your generator is
loaded.  See RDoc::Generator for details.

== File Parsing

After options are parsed, RDoc parses files from the files and directories in
ARGV.  RDoc compares the filename against what each parser claims it can parse
via RDoc::Parser#parse_files_matching.  For example, RDoc::Parser::C can parse
C files, C headers, C++ files, C++ headers and yacc grammars.

Once a matching parser class is found it is instantiated and +scan+ is called.
The parser needs to extract documentation from the file and add it to the RDoc
document tree.  Usually this involves starting at the root and adding a class
or a module (RDoc::TopLevel#add_class and RDoc::TopLevel#add_module) and
proceeding to add classes, modules and methods to each nested item.

When the parsers are finished the document tree is cleaned up to remove
dangling references to aliases and includes that were not found (and may exist
in a separate library) through RDoc::ClassModule#complete.

To write your own parser for a new file format see RDoc::Parser.

=== Documentation Tree

The parsers build a documentation tree that is composed of RDoc::CodeObject and
its subclasses.  There are various methods to walk the tree to extract
information, see RDoc::Context and its subclasses.

Within a class or module, attributes, methods and constants are divided into
sections.  The section represents a functional grouping of parts of the class.
TomDoc uses the sections "Public", "Internal" and "Deprecated".  The sections
can be enumerated using RDoc::Context#each_section.

== Output Generation

An RDoc generator turns the documentation tree into some other kind of output.
RDoc comes with an HTML generator (RDoc::Generator::Darkfish) and an RI
database generator (RDoc::Generator::RI).  The output a generator creates does
not have to be human-readable.

To create your own generator see RDoc::Generator.

=== Comments

In RDoc 3.10 and newer the comment on an RDoc::CodeObject is now an
RDoc::Comment object instead of a String.  This is to support various
documentation markup formats like rdoc, TomDoc and rd.  The comments are
normalized to remove comment markers and remove indentation then parsed lazily
via RDoc::Comment#document to create a generic markup tree that can be
processed by a formatter.

To add your own markup format see RDoc::Markup@Other+directives

==== Formatters

To transform a comment into some form of output an RDoc::Markup::Formatter
subclass is used like RDoc::Markup::ToHtml.  A formatter is a visitor that
walks a parsed comment tree (an RDoc::Markup::Document) of any format.  To help
write a formatter RDoc::Markup::FormatterTestCase exists for generic parsers,
and RDoc::Markup::TextFormatterTestCase which contains extra test cases for
text-type output (like +ri+ output).

RDoc ships with formatters that will turn a comment into HTML, rdoc-markup-like
text, ANSI or terminal backspace highlighted text, HTML, cross-referenced HTML,
an HTML snippet free of most markup, an HTML label for use in id attributes, a
table-of-contents page, and text with only code blocks.

The output of the formatter does not need to be text or text-like.
RDoc::Markup::ToLabel creates an HTML-safe label for use in an HTML id
attribute.  A formatter could count the number of words and the average word
length for a comment, for example.

==== Directives

For comments in markup you can add new directives (:nodoc: is a directive).
Directives may replace text or store it off for later use.

See RDoc::Markup::PreProcess::register for details.

=== JSONIndex

RDoc contains a special generator, RDoc::Generator::JSONIndex, which creates a
JSON-based search index and includes a search engine for use with HTML output.
This generator can be used to add searching to any HTML output and is designed
to be called from inside an HTML generator.