Re: Kernel docs: muddying the waters a bit

[Markus Heiser]

Hi Jani,

I forget to mentioning, with a local copy of my kernel-doc script:

https://github.com/return42/sphkerneldoc/blob/master/scripts/kernel-doc

You could do reST markup in the source code comments and extract them.

This might be a interim workaround which helps you not to edit source 
code comments twice.

-- Markus--



Am 06.05.2016 um 13:23 schrieb Markus Heiser <markus.heiser@xxxxxxxxxxx>:

> 
> Hy Jani,
> 
> Am 04.05.2016 um 18:13 schrieb Jani Nikula <jani.nikula@xxxxxxxxx>:
> 
>>> Am 04.05.2016 um 17:09 schrieb Jonathan Corbet <corbet@xxxxxxx>:
>>> 
>>>> I think all of this makes sense.  It would be really nice to have the
>>>> directives in the native sphinx language like that.  I *don't* think we
>>>> need to aim for that at the outset; the docproc approach works until we can
>>>> properly get rid of it.  What would be *really* nice would be to get
>>>> support for the kernel-doc directive into the sphinx upstream.
>>> 
>>> No need for kernel-doc directive in sphinx upstream, later it will be 
>>> an extension which could be installed by a simple command like 
>>> "pip install kernel-doc-extensions" or similar.
>>> 
>>> I develop these required extension (and more) within my proof of concept
>>> on github ... this takes time ... if I finished all my tests and all is
>>> well, I will build the *kernel-doc-extensions* package and deploy it
>>> on https://pypi.python.org/pypi from where everyone could install this 
>>> with "pip".
>> 
>> I think we should go for vanilla sphinx at first, to make the setup step
>> as easy as possible for everyone. Even if it means still doing that ugly
>> docproc step to call kernel-doc. We can improve from there, and I
>> definitely appreciate your work on making this work with sphinx
>> extensions.
> 
> +1 
> 
>> That said, how would it work to include the kernel-doc extension in the
>> kernel source tree? Having things just work if sphinx is installed is
>> preferred over requiring installation of something extra from pypi. (I
>> know this may sound backwards for a lot of projects, but for kernel I'm
>> pretty sure this is how it should be done.)
> 
> Thats all right. Lets talk about the extension infrastructure by example:
> 
> First we have to chose a folder where we place all the *sphinx-documentation*
> I recommending:
> 
> /share/linux/Documentation/sphinx
> 
> Next we have to chose a folder where reST-extensions should take place, I
> would prefer ... or similar:
> 
> /share/linux/Documentation/sphinx/extensions
> 
> Lets say, you wan't to get in use of the "flat-table" extension.
> 
> Copy (only) the rstFlatTable.py file from my POC extension folder (ignore
> other extensions which might be there) ...
> 
> https://github.com/return42/sphkerneldoc/tree/master/doc/extensions
> 
> Now lets say you are writing on a gpu book, it wold be placed in the folder:
> 
> /share/linux/Documentation/sphinx/gpu
> 
> In this gpu-folder you have to place the conf.py config file, needed to
> setup the sphinx build environment.
> 
> /share/linux/Documentation/sphinx/gpu/conf.py
> 
> In this conf.py you have to *register* your folder with the extensions.
> 
> <SNIP conf.py> --------
> 
>    import os.path, sys
> 
>    EXT_PATH  = "../extensions"  # the path of extension folder relative to the conf.py file
>    sys.path.insert(0, os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), EXT_PATH)))
> 
>    # now import the "flat-table" extension, it will be self-registering to docutils
> 
>    import rstFlatTable
> 
> <SNIP conf.py> --------
> 
> Thats all, you can run your sphinx-build command and the flat-tables in your
> reST sources should be handled as common tables.
> 
> ASIDE: 
> 
> You will find similar parts in your conf.py which you have created 
> with the sphinx-quickstart command. There, you will also find a block 
> looks like ...
> 
> extensions = [
>    'sphinx.ext.autodoc'
> ....
> ]
> 
> Don't try to add flat-table extension to this list. This list is a list
> of sphinx extensions, we will use it later for other *real* sphinx 
> extensions.
> 
> A few words about the flat-table extension and a (future) kernel-doc one:
> 
> The flat-table is a pure docutils (the layer below sphinx) extension which
> is not application specific, so I will ask for moving it to the docutils 
> upstream. 
> 
> The kernel-doc extension on the other side is a very (very) kernel specific
> application, this would never go to sphinx nor docutils upstream.
> 
> --Markus--
>