tech-userlevel archive

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index][Old Index]

Documentation of Lua modules



Lua modules provide functionality to Lua programs, e.g. accessing SQLite
databases or GPIO pins from Lua.  These modules should of course be
documented, what their purpose is, and the functions they provide.

Note that these are not C library functions, so section 3 of the manual
is inappropriate, plus there are name clashes with existing manual pages
to be expected (e.g. gpio is in section 4, but there is also a Lua
module named gpio).

After discusssing with several developers and especially after a few
email exchanges with Thomas Klausner, I propose the following scheme:

- A new manual section for Lua documentation is created, 3l.  The
physical directory in the source tree would then be man3l.  To lookup a
manpage, we use '3l' and 'lua' in man.conf.  3l will be searched after
section 3, before section 4.  'lua' is just an alias for '3l'.

- Modules are described in man pages with the same name as the module
name, e.g. the gpio module will be documented in gpio(3l).

- Functions within modules will be documented in a man page with the
function name prefixed by the module name, e.g. the open function in the
gpio module will be documented in gpio.open(3l)

Thomas Klausner is fine with this, I am posting it here in case someone
has a better idea.

Also note that this scheme is consistent with e.g. Perl that uses
section 6p, afaict.

- Marc Balmer


Home | Main Index | Thread Index | Old Index