[GRASS-dev] parser_rst.c

[Hamish]

Luca wrote:
> For GRASS7 in lib/gis I create parser_rst.c to parse the options and
> flags of modules to obtain a rst file. This could be the first step to
> obtain the GRASS modules documentation in Restructured Text.
> Can I commit my changes? I test my improvements and it compile without
> error or warning I also test it (you have to launch module with
> --rst-description option) and the results are good but more modules
> are to be tested, maybe some specific case could be to fix

while my personal preference would to be with the strongly (sort of)
prescriptive markup language we're already using (HTML) rather than move
to the loosely prescriptive (and from my experience more twitchy) ReST
markup language, I look forward to seeing what can be done with it and
would enjoy being proved wrong by something that looked as nice as the
GRASS 5 Programmers' manual.

Frankly I'm amazed that basic/classic HTML -> LaTeX (maybe via docbook)
isn't a completely solved issue years ago, since all the structured
markup is there and enforced already. All the ingredients are there..
it baffles me.


So it's all fine by me to try it! Only caveat would be to call the option
--rest-description not --rst-.., since the RST name has been used for
regularized splines with tension for many years in GRASS already, and
it's officially called ReST. The days of 8.3 DOS filenames are over.
If we're allowed to have upper cased letters in long description names
(or it just gets tolower()'d away) perhaps document it in the help as
--ReST-description just to make it obvious.


thanks,
Hamish