[/ Copyright 2002,2004,2006 Joel de Guzman, Eric Niebler Copyright 2010-2011 Daniel James Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at [@http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt]) ] [chapter Document Structure [quickbook 1.7] [id quickbook.syntax.structure] [source-mode teletype] ] [/TODO: I started to write this in the syntax chapter, but it was too much information, will incorporate into this file.] [/ To avoid breaking old documentation we support using different versions of the language, compatibility is not 100% but we try to avoid problematic changes. This documentation applies to the current version, `[quickbook 1.5]`. ] [#quickbook.ref.docinfo] [section:docinfo Document Info] Every document must begin with a Document Info section, which looks something like this: ``` [article The Document Title [quickbook 1.7] [version 1.0] [id the_document_name] [copyright 2000 2002 2003 Joe Blow, Jane Doe] [authors [Blow, Joe] [Doe, Jane]] [license The document's license] [source-mode c++] ] ``` `article` is the document type. There are several possible document types, most of these are based on docbook document elements. These are fully described in [@http://www.docbook.org/tdg/ DocBook: The Definitive Guide]: * [@http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/book.html book] * [@http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/article.html article] * [@http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/chapter.html chapter] * [@http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/part.html part] * [@http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/appendix.html appendix] * [@http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/preface.html preface] * [@http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/qandadiv.html qandadiv] * [@http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/qandaset.html qandaset] * [@http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/reference.html reference] * [@http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/set.html set] Boostbook also adds another document type [^[link boostbook.defining library]] for documenting software libraries. So the documentation for the 'foo' library might start: ``` [library Foo [quickbook 1.7] [id foo] [version 1.0] ] ``` [#quickbook.ref.attributes] [section:attributes Document Info Attributes] The document info block has a few different types of attributes. They are all optional. [heading Quickbook specific meta data] ``` [quickbook 1.7] ``` The `quickbook` attribute declares the version of quickbook the document is written for. In its absence, version 1.1 is assumed. It's recommended that you use `[quickbook 1.7]` which is the version described here. [note The quickbook version also makes some changes to the markup that's generated. Most notably, the ids that are automatically for headers and sections are different in later versions. To minimise disruption, you can use the =compatibility-mode= attribute to generate similar markup to the old version: ``` [article Article that was original written in quickbook 1.3 [quickbook 1.7] [compatibility-mode 1.3] ] ``` This feature shouldn't be used for new documents, just for porting old documents to the new version. ] Both the =quickbook= and =compatibility-mode= tags can be used at the start of the file, before the document info block, and also in files that don't have a document info block. ``` [source-mode teletype] ``` The `source-mode` attribute sets the initial __source_mode__. If it is omitted, the default value of =c++= will be used. [heading Boostbook/Docbook root element attributes] ``` [id foo] ``` `id` specifies the id of the document element. If it isn't specified the id is automatically generated from the title. This id is also used to generate the nested ids. ``` [lang en] ``` `lang` specifies the document language. This is used by docbook to localize the documentation. Note that Boostbook doesn't have any localization support so if you use it to generate the reference documentation it will be in English regardless. It should be a language code drawn from ISO 639 (perhaps extended with a country code drawn from ISO 3166, as en-US). ``` [dirname foo] ``` `dirname` is used to specify the directory name of the library in the repository. This is a boostbook extension so it's only valid for `library` documentation blocks. It's used for some boostbook functionality, but for pure quickbook documentation has no practical effect. [heading Docbook Metadata] =version=, =copyright=, =authors=, =license=, =last-revision= and =bibliod= are optional information. [heading Boostbook Metadata] =purpose= and =category= are boostbook attributes which are only valid for =library= documents. If you use them for other document types, quickbook will warn about them, but still use them, generating invalid markup, that's just ignored by the style sheets. [heading:escaped-docbook Escaped Docbook] From quickbook 1.7 onwards, [link quickbook.ref.escape escaped boostbook or docbook] can be included in a docinfo block: ``` [article Some article [quickbook 1.7] ''' John Doe john.doe@example.com ''' ] ``` The escaped docbook is always placed at the end of the docinfo block, so it shouldn't be assumed that it will interleave with markup generated from quickbook. A mixture of quickbook and docbook attributes for the same information will not work well. [endsect:attributes] [section:nesting Nesting quickbook documents] Docinfo blocks can only appear at the beginning of a quickbook file, so to create a more complicated document you need to use several quickbook files and use the [link quickbook.ref.include include tag] to nest them. For example, say you wish to create a book with an introduction and a chapter, you first create a file for the book: [book Simple example [quickbook 1.7] ] [include introduction.qbk] [include chapter.qbk] [note Structuring a document like this was introduced in quickbook 1.6, so a `[quickbook 1.6]` or later docinfo field is required.] The appropriate document type for an introduction is `preface`, so the contents of `introduction.qbk` should be something like: [preface Introduction [quickbook 1.7] ] Write the introduction to the book here.... And `chapter.qbk`: [chapter A chapter [quickbook 1.7] ] Chapter contents.... [endsect:nesting] [endsect:docinfo] [#quickbook.ref.section] [section:section Sections] Quickbook documents are structured using 'sections'. These are used to generate the table of contents, and, when generating html, to split the document into pages. This is optional but a good idea for all but the simplest of documents. A sectioned document might look like: ``` [book Title [quickbook 1.5] ] [section First Section] [/...] [endsect] [section Second Section] [/...] [endsect] ``` Sections start with the `section` tag, and end with the `[endsect]` tag. (`[/...]` is a comment, [link quickbook.ref.comments described later]). Sections can be given an optional id: ``` [#quickbook.ref.id] [section:id The Section Title] ``` `id` will be the filename of the generated section. If it is not present, "The Section Title" will be normalized and become the id. Valid characters are =a-Z=, =A-Z=, =0-9= and =_=. All non-valid characters are converted to underscore and all upper-case are converted to lower case. Thus: "The Section Title" will be normalized to "the_section_title". The end of the section can also have an optional id, this is just used to check that it matches the opening of the section. ``` [section:matching Section with an id] [/...] [endsect:matching] ``` It won't match a generated id, only one that's explicitly specified, so this will be an error, even if quickbook generates the id `generated` for the section: ``` [section Generated] [/...] [endsect:generated] ``` Sections can nest, and that results in a hierarchy in the table of contents. [endsect:section]