p6doc -- an attempt to write something like 'perldoc' for Perl 6

An HTML version of this documentation can be found at http://doc.perl6.org/.

(If you are browsing this repository via github, it will not display most files correctly, because this is Perl 6 Pod, and github assumes Perl 5 POD).

With a Rakudo perl6 executable in PATH, try

./bin/p6doc Type::Str

to see the documentation for class Str, or

./bin/p6doc Type::Str.split

to see the documentation for method split in class Str.

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Building the HTML documentation

To build the documentation web pages, simply run

$ make html

In addition to the Perl 6 dependencies, you need to have graphviz installed.

After the pages have been generated, you can view them on your local computer by starting the included app.pl program:

$ make run

You can then view the examples documentation by pointing your web browser at http://localhost:3000.

You will need at least Mojolicious installed and Inline::Python is recommended to speed up the syntax highlighting phase.

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Help Wanted!

Perl 6 is not a small language, and documenting it takes a lot of effort. Any help is appreciated.

Here are some ways to help us:

• add missing documentation for classes, roles, methods or operators
• add usage examples to existing documentation
• proofread and correct the documentation
• tell us about missing documentation, either by adding it to the WANTED file, or by opening issues on github.
• Do a git grep TODO in this repository, and replace the TODO items by actual documentation.

The file WANTED has a list of particular documents that are known to be missing and CONTRIBUTING explains briefly how to get started contributing documentation.

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Some notes:

Q: Why aren't you embedding the docs in the CORE sources?
A: Several reasons:

1. This documentation is intended to be universal with respect to a given version of the specification, and not necessarily tied to any specific Perl 6 implementation.
2. Implementations' handling of embedded POD is still a bit uneven; this avoids potential runtime impacts.
3. A separate repo in the perl6 Github account invites more potential contributors and editors.

Q: Should I include methods from superclasses or roles
A: No. The HTML version already includes methods from superclasses and roles, and the p6doc script will be taught about those as well.

Q: Which license is this stuff under?
A: Both code and documentation are available under the Artistic License 2.0 as published by The Perl Foundation. See the LICENSE file for the full text.

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Vision

I want p6doc and doc.perl6.org to become the No. 1 resource to consult when you want to know something about a Perl 6 feature, be it from the language, or built-in types and routines. I want it to be useful to every Perl 6 programmer.

-- moritz

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Wishlist stuff:

• Search terms like .any, any(), &any, ::Any, etc. can be used to disambiguate whether information is sought on a method, subroutine, type, etc.

• Searching for Int.Bool returns the documentation for the inherited method Numeric.Bool.

• Searching for an operator name returns the documentation for the operator. (p6doc '%%' returns the documentation for &infix:<%%>.)

• Perl 6 implementations could embed P<...> tags in their source code that would then inline the corresponding entry from p6doc. This would enable things like &say.WHY to (dynamically!) retrieve the documentation string from p6doc, without having to duplicate the documentation in the CORE.setting sources or to encode the documentation into the binaries.

  Example:

  # In Rakudo's src/core/IO.pm:
  
  #= P<p6doc/&print>
  sub print(|$) { ... }
  
  #= P<p6doc/&say>
  sub say(|$) { ... }
  
  #= P<p6doc/&note>
  sub note(|$) { ... }