Convert emacs lisp documentation to markdown all day every day
This tool will let you easily convert Elisp file comments to markdown text so long as the file comments and documentation follow standard conventions (like this file). This is because when you're writing an elisp module, the module itself should be the canonical source of documentation. But it's not very user-friendly or good marketing for your project to have an empty README.md that refers people to your source code, and it's even worse if you have to maintain two separate files that say the same thing.
- Smart conversion of standard Elisp comment conventions to equivalent markdown (section headers, lists, image links, etc)
- Public function documentation from docstrings
- License badge (auto-detected, see Badges)
- MELPA and MELPA-Stable badges (auto-detected, see Badges)
- Travis badge (auto-detected, see Badges)
- Emacs Icon
None
The recommended way to use this tool is by putting the following code in
your Makefile and running make README.md (You don't even have to clone the
repository!):
README.md: make-readme-markdown.el YOUR-MODULE.el
emacs --script $< <YOUR-MODULE.el >$@ 2>/dev/null
make-readme-markdown.el:
wget -q -O $@ https://raw.github.com/mgalgs/make-readme-markdown/master/make-readme-markdown.el
.INTERMEDIATE: make-readme-markdown.el
You can also invoke it directly with emacs --script:
$ emacs --script make-readme-markdown.el <elisp-file-to-parse.el 2>/dev/null
All functions, macros, and customizable variables in your module with
docstrings will be documented in the output unless they've been marked
as private. Convention dictates that private elisp functions have two
hypens, like cup--noodle.
A license badge is generated if a license can be detected. Just include the license in your file's comments like normal, taking care to copy/paste the license from its source verbatim.
A MELPA badge is generated if a package is listed on MELPA whose URL matches the URL in your file's pseudo-headers. Specifically, the URL is taken from that familiar chunk of key-value pairs near the top of your file's pseudo-header comments that usually look something like this:
;; Author: Mitchel Humpherys <mitch.special@gmail.com>
;; Keywords: convenience, diff
;; Version: 1.0
;; URL: https://github.com/mgalgs/diffview-mode
In this case, we would search MELPA for a package whose listed URL matches https://github.com/mgalgs/diffview-mode. If such a package is found, a MELPA badge is emitted. The same approach is taken for MELPA-Stable.
A Travis badge is generated by querying the Travis API for a project
whose username/repo key matches the one listed in the URL tag. So in
our example above we would query Travis for a project named
mgalgs/diffview-mode. Currently this only works for projects hosted
on GitHub.
An attempt has been made to support the most common Elisp file comment conventions. Specifically, following patterns at the beginning of a line are special:
;;; My Header:⇒ Creates a header;; o My list item⇒ Creates a list item;; * My list item⇒ Creates a list item;; - My list item⇒ Creates a list item
Everything else is stripped of its leading semicolons and its first space, then is passed directly out. This means that you can embed markdown syntax directly in your comments. For example, you can embed blocks of code in your comments by leading the line with 4 spaces (in addition to the first space directly following the last semicolon). For example:
(defun mrm-strip-comments (line)
"Strip elisp comments from line"
(replace-regexp-in-string "^;+ ?" "" line))
Or you can use the triple-backtic+lang notation, like so:
(defun mrm-strip-comments (line)
"Strip elisp comments from line"
(replace-regexp-in-string "^;+ ?" "" line))Remember, if you want to indent code within a list item you need to use a blank line and 8 spaces. For example:
-
I like bananas
-
I like pizza
(eat (make-pizza "pepperoni")) -
I like ice cream with pretty syntax highlighting
(eat (make-ice-cream "vanilla"))- I need to go for a run
We convert everything between ;;; Commentary: and ;;; Code into
markdown. See make-readme-markdown.el for a full example (you might
already be looking at it... whoa, this is really getting meta...).
If there's some more syntax you would like to see supported, submit an issue at https://github.com/mgalgs/make-readme-markdown/issues
Many of the functions in this module should probably be "private" (named with a double-hypen ("--") but are left "public" for illustration purposes.
Strip elisp comments from line
Strip elisp file variables from the first LINE in a file. E.g., `-- lexical-binding: t; --'
Trim spaces from beginning and end of string
Fix refs like this so they don't turn adjacent text into code.
Makes a markdown section using the # syntax.
Prints a section made with mrm-make-section.
Read all text from stdin as list of lines
Wrap image hyperlinks with img tags.
Prints a line formatted as markdown.
Searches for the next defun/defmacro/defcustom and prints
markdown documentation.
Returns a list of the form (token token-name title-text docstring).
Example return value:
("defun" "document-a-defmacro" "(document-a-defmacro CODE)" "Takes a defmacro form and..."
Takes a defcustom form and returns documentation for it as a string
Takes a defun form and returns documentation for it as a string
Coalesce whitespace.
Print badges for license, package repo, etc. Tries to parse a license from the comments, printing a badge for any license found.
Print emacs icon to generate a fancy README.md.