RST Documentation Generator for nodejs

This documentation generator uses the code contents and comments to autogenerate documentation for a project.

Documented objects

Three types of objects are documented:

• class declarations (together with their methods)
• function declarations in module files
• variable declarations in module files

How it works

The Generator will look for documenting comments in the code and use those to generate the documentation text. If no documenting comments are found, a basic documentation text is generated, describing the item based on the code itself (eg. function arguments, etc)

Comments can be either in asterisk or in double slash format.

Generally, RST format is parsed, with some remarks.

Comment selection

If you want to document a function, class or method, place the comment right before the declaration, as such:

/*
 * My very special method
 */
myVerySpecialMethod (arg1, arg2)

This will generate a documentation text that includes the commented text.

If you want to document a whole section of your code, place the comment one empty row away from the next element at least. This currently works only for variable declarations:

/*
 * Configuration values
 */

// first value
const firstValue = 42;
// second value
const secondValue = "foo";

This will group the two variables in the same section in the generated file.

Paragraphs

Just like in RST, rows will be merged into a single paragraph, unless separated by an empty row:

/*
 * This is the first
 * paragraph.
 *
 * And this is the
 * second
 */

Bullet text

To create bullet text, simply use bullets in the comment block:

/*
 * This function takes the following arguments:
 * `argument1`: string, the first value
 * `argument2`: number, the other value
 */

Bullet nesting is available, and text starting with backward quotes and colon will be automatically considered as bullets.

Block text

To create block text, such as code blocks, use double colon before the block (only first row is required to start with double colon, but you can do it on subsequent blocks as a styling choice if you will):

/*
 * :: This block will be displayed as a block (monospace) text
 *    You can use this to represent code, for instance
 */

Directives

Directives can be used to specify things that are not easy to pick up by the engine, for example name aliasing, exported names of objects and so on.

To specify a directive in comments, use the @ annotation: [@<directive> <args>]{.title-ref}

Some directives apply to the next code block, others apply to the entire unit. They are used to specify things that are not directly obvious to the CodeUnit engine or to provide metadata for better documentation output.

Available directives:

• alias <altName>: the following code block implements an alias of altName
• alias <what> <altName>: sets an alias for what under altName
• assign <target> <value>: assigns a variable or value to target field of object
• export <exportName>: sets the exported name of the next block
• export <what> <exportName>: sets the exported name of what to exportName
• parse: this has two effects - forces the CodeUnit engine to parse the contents of the following block, even if normally that would not be the case (eg. for function blocks) and it applies any directives found in the parse block
• pattern <type> <args>: specify a particular pattern implemented by this CodeUnit; for now only singleton patterns can be specified: pattern singleton <className>

Directives placed at the end of the file (after all code) refer to the CodeUnit file instead of the following block

Objects can be specified in the assign, alias, export directives by path. An object directly on CodeUnit level can be specified directly by identifier name, while a nested (assigned) object or a prototype object can be specified by path (with dots).

The object path can contain expressions between {} brakets, which will be parsed by reading the lines of code directly under the directive. Parsing can use regular expressions and keywords: {<keyword><regex>}

Available keywords:

• target: in an assignment, apply the regex to extract the name from the target of the assignment; return extracted name
• value: in an assignment, use the regex to extract the name from the value of the assignment; return extracted name
• arg[i]: in a function call, use the regex to extract the name from the index i argument of the call, starting from zero; return extracted name

DGenOne Command Line Interface (./cli.js)

Nodejs executable script for documentation generation

Execution:

node path/to/cli.js command [ arguments ]

Available commands:

• help [command]: print a general help text or command help text if command is given
• config init: initialize a project configuration sequence in current directory
• config default: configure a project with default settings in current directory
• config get <key>: print the currently configured value(s) for key
• config set <key> <value>: set config value at key
• document files: generate file content documentation (code units)
• document objects: generate object content documentation (classes)

Using as module

The functionality can be accessed from a nodejs application if the generator is included as a nodejs module:

const DGenOne = require("dgen-one");

This provides access to the environment class. Example:

const Environment = require("./src/environment.js");

let env = new Environment();

env.autoloadProjectFiles("./sample");

env.outputFilesDocumentation("./sample/documentation/files");
env.outputObjectsDocumentation("./sample/documentation/objects");

This will load all files in the ./sample directory and generate file content documentation and object content documentation. Have a look at the documentation for more details.