The full policy documentation was moved to Help/policy/*.rst by commit
f051814e (Convert builtin help to reStructuredText source files,
2013-10-15). We no longer need the builtin string literals.
In commit 87cc62ca (Drop "full" documentation output types, 2013-09-13)
we dropped code using the LongDescription field of policy definitions.
We need to follow it up with a change similar to commit 399e9c46 (Drop
builtin property documentation, 2013-09-16) to remove the policy
documentation. Do that now. Keep the short description as it is used
in policy error and warning messages.
9b212ad Make --help-* options available from all command-line tools
5dde65a Help: De-duplicate manual/(cmake|ccmake).1.rst build options
ae944d1 Help: Organize manual/*.1.rst sections
4f7d708 Help: Drop leftover conversion content from manual/*.1.rst
Make the standard --help-* options available from all command-line
tools. Drop options that are no longer supported:
--copyright, --help-full, --help-html, --help-man,
--help-compatcommands, --help-custom-modules
De-duplicate Help/manual/*.1.rst help options by using an
OPTIONS_HELP.txt file included from each manual.
Add "Synopsis", "Description", and "See Also" manual page section
headers. These are typical of .1 man section pages. Also de-duplicate
the See Also section links using a separate LINKS.txt file included from
each manual.
7038a93 Modules/readme.txt: Update steps to add module documentation
a77e308 CPack: Replace #<type> markup with reStructuredText equivalent
e7ca48f Help: Factor out cmake-generator-expressions manual page
97e8650 Help: Factor out COMPILE_DEFINITIONS disclaimer duplication
8982161 Help: Factor out find_* command duplication
30b2186 Help: Factor out *_OUTPUT_(NAME|DIRECTORY).rst duplication
bfe07aa Build Help documentation during CMake build using Sphinx
53ded59 Drop unused builtin documentation APIs
0c39a75 Drop the 'Full' field from cmDocumentationEntry
e33d8d2 Drop builtin command documentation
399e9c4 Drop builtin property documentation
6035c04 get_property: Drop test for builtin property documentation
80a3273 Drop all documentation formatters except Usage
b336a1eb Teach COMPATIBLE_INTERFACE_* checks to use Help .rst documents
ec6df36 Teach --help-* options to load documentation from .rst files
25f2877 Add class cmRST to do basic reStructuredText processing
...
Drop #end and #module. Convert #section to a subsection header.
Convert #variable to the cmake domain "variable" directive.
Convert #macro to the cmake domain "command" directive.
Perform minor formatting fixes in text near these changes.
Generator expressions are supported in many places and are a distinct
concept worthy of their own manual page. The old builtin documentation
was previously represented by preprocessor macros to generate it into
each place that supports them. Factor out the duplicate content into a
dedicated cmake-generator-expressions manual page and reference it from
each original location.
The COMPILE_DEFINITIONS escaping disclaimer was represented in builtin
documentation using a preprocessor macro. Factor the duplicate content
out into a separate .txt file and include it in each document with the
reStructuredText include directive.
These documents were represented in the builtin documentation using a
common starting point with placeholders substituted by each command.
Convert them back to this approach using the reStructuredText include
directive and substitutions to avoid duplication.
Portions of these documents contain duplicate content generated from
preprocessor macros in the original builtin documentation source.
Factor the common parts out into .txt files using reStructuredText
include directives and substitutions to avoid duplication.
Add a Utilities/Sphinx directory to hold CMake build code to run the
Sphinx (sphinx-doc.org) documentation generation tool. Create a
CMakeLists.txt file there capable of building either as a subdirectory
of the main CMake build, or as a standalone documentation build.
Add cache options SPHINX_MAN and SPHINX_HTML to select output formats
and SPHINX_EXECUTABLE to specify the sphinx-build executable. Add
bootstrap options --sphix-man and --sphinx-html to select output formats
and --sphinx-build=<sb> to specify the sphinx-build executable.
Create a "conf.py.in" file to configure_file into "conf.py" to tell
sphinx-build how to build our documents. Create a "cmake.py" Sphinx
extension module defining:
* The "cmake-module" directive used in Help/module/*.rst files to
scan .rst markup from the corresponding Modules/*.cmake file.
* A Sphinx domain called "cmake" defining documentation object types
for CMake Help/<type> directories: command, generator, manual,
module, policy, prop_*, and variable. Add a "role" for each type
to perform cross-references. Teach the roles to treat "<XYZ>"
as placeholders instead of explicit targets if not preceded by
a space. Add cmake domain directives to define command and
variable objects explicitly in .rst file content. This will
allow modules to define their own commands and variables and
have them indexed and linkable.
* A Sphinx document transform that converts Help/<type>/*.rst documents
into cmake domain objects of the corresponding <type> and adds index
entries for them. This will automatically index all CMake documentation
objects and provide cross-reference targets for them with no special
markup in the .rst files.
Drop all DefineProperty calls for non-chained properties. Drop the
documentation from the chained ones. The documentation for all
properties is now in Help/prop_*/*.rst files.
We now need only the Usage formatter to support command-line options
that print basic usage, and the supporting indented=>preformatted markup
processor to support CMake message formatting. Drop all other
documentation formatters and move the remaining code up into the top
cmDocumentationFormatter class.
These checks want to know if named target properties are builtin, which
is now known by checking the Help/prop_tgt directory. (Previously the
check could be confused by a define_property call in the project.)
Install the Help directory next to Modules to make it available in CMake
distributions. Use cmRST to read Help .rst documents and print them as
help output.
Add options
--help-manual-list
--help-manual
to list available manuals or print one of them. Implement the options
--help-commands
--help-modules
--help-policies
--help-properties
--help-variables
by mapping to the corresponding manual page. Implement the options
--help-command-list
--help-module-list
--help-policy-list
--help-property-list
--help-variable-list
by globbing the available Help .rst documents of the corresponding type
and reading their titles. Implement the options
--help-command
--help-module
--help-policy
--help-property
--help-variable
by globbing the matching Help .rst document(s) and printing them.
Create a cmRST class to perform just enough reStructuredText processing
to support display of Help documents in human-readable text format.
This will be used to implement --help-* command-line options.
Support directives "include", "replace", "parsed-literal", "toctree"
(Sphinx), and "cmake-module" (CMake Sphinx Extension to scan .cmake
modules). Support inline CMake Sphinx Domain roles to convert
cross-references to corresponding title text. Support inline
substitutions defined by the "replace" directive, but keep it simple by
requiring replacements to be defined before use.
Add a CMakeLib "testRST" case to cover processing of supported
constructs and compare results against expected output.
We will no longer support full documentation generation from executables
and will instead generate documentation with other tools. Disable (with
a warning left behind) the command-line options:
--copyright
--help-compatcommands
--help-full
--help-html
--help-man
Drop supporting code. Drop manual sections generation from executables.
Remove internal documentation construction APIs. Drop unused sections
See Also, Author, Copyright, Compat Commands, Custom Modules.
Add a top-level document holding the Sphinx root toctree. List all
reference manuals from Help/manual/*.rst and the Sphinx-generated
general index (genindex) and search pages.
Create a convert-help.bash script to extract builtin documentation as
reStructuredText sources in a new Help directory. Run each executable
with the --help-full option targeting a .rst file to extract the
documentation. Generate Sphinx "toctree" directives to point each man
page at the corresponding documents it should contain. Organize
cmake-commands(7), cmake-properties(7), and cmake-variables(7) man pages
into sections similar to those generated by --help-properties and
--help-variables output previously.
Run "cmake --help-full cmake.1.rst" by hand on Windows and OS X.
Copy the generator/*.rst documents for generators unique to those
platforms into Help/generator.
Temporarily add a RST formatter to convert builtin documentation to .rst
source files. This will be removed shortly after we use it to convert
documentation.
Teach the RST formatter to:
* Output preformatted blocks as reStructuredText "::" literal blocks.
* Output option lists as bullet lists with option names enclosed in
reStructuredText ``literal`` quoting.
* Output individual documentation objects (commands, variables, etc.)
in separate .rst files organized in directories by type.
Replace references to cmVersion::GetCMakeVersion() in builtin
documentation with the literal placeholder "|release|" that will be
defined as a substitution later.
With our modern development workflow it is less likely a property will
be added to C++ code without documentation. This mode only existed to
support the DocTest which had very limited coverage of the properties
anyway.
Drop the 'documentation' build target. We will no longer use the
executables to generate their own documentation. New infrastructure
will be introduced later to generate documentation.
Brad King
Kitware Robot
Nils Gladitz
Rolf Eike Beer
Stephen Kelly