DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages

Search: Section:  

NOWEB(1)               DragonFly General Commands Manual              NOWEB(1)


NAME

       noweb - a simple literate-programming tool


SYNOPSIS

       noweb [-t] [-o] [-Lformat] [-markup parser] [file] ...


DESCRIPTION

       Noweb is a literate-programming tool like FunnelWEB or nuweb, only
       simpler.  A noweb file contains program source code interleaved with
       documentation.  When noweb is invoked, it writes the program source
       code to the output files mentioned in the noweb file, and it writes a
       TeX file for typeset documentation.

       The noweb(1) command is for people who don't like reading man pages or
       who are switching from nuweb.  To get the most out of noweb, use
       notangle(1) and noweave(1) instead.


FORMAT OF NOWEB FILES

       A noweb file is a sequence of chunks, which may appear in any order.  A
       chunk may contain code or documentation.  Documentation chunks begin
       with a line that starts with an at sign (@) followed by a space or
       newline.  They have no names.  Code chunks begin with
       <<chunk name>>=
       on a line by itself.  The double left angle bracket (<<) must be in the
       first column.  Chunks are terminated by the beginning of another chunk,
       or by end of file.  If the first line in the file does not mark the
       beginning of a chunk, it is assumed to be the first line of a
       documentation chunk.

       Documentation chunks contain text that is copied verbatim to the TeX
       file (except for quoted code).  noweb works with LaTeX; the first
       documentation chunk must contain a LaTeX \documentclass command, it
       must contain \usepackage{noweb} in the preamble, and finally it must
       also contain a LaTeX \begin{document} command.

       Code chunks contain program source code and references to other code
       chunks.  Several code chunks may have the same name; noweb concatenates
       their definitions to produce a single chunk, just as other literate-
       programming tools do.  noweb looks for chunks that are defined but not
       used in the source file.  If the name of such a chunk contains no
       spaces, the chunk is an ``output file;'' noweb expands it and writes
       the result onto the file of the same name.  A code-chunk definition is
       like a macro definition; it contains references to other chunks, which
       are themselves expanded, and so on.  noweb's output is readable; it
       preserves the indentation of expanded chunks with respect to the chunks
       in which they appear.

       If a star (*) is appended to the name of an output file, noweb includes
       line-number information as specified by the -Lformat option (or for C
       if no -Lformat option is given).  The name itself may not contain shell
       metacharacters.

       Code may be quoted within documentation chunks by placing double square
       brackets ([[...]]) around it.  These double square brackets are used to
       give the code special typographic treatment in the TeX file.  If quoted
       code ends with three or more square brackets, noweb chooses the
       rightmost pair, so that, for example, [[a[i]]] is parsed correctly.

       In code, noweb treats unpaired double left or right angle brackets as
       literal << and >>.  To force any such brackets, even paired brackets or
       brackets in documentation, to be treated as literal, use a preceding at
       sign (e.g. @<<).


OPTIONS

       -t     Suppress generation of a TeX file.

       -o     Suppress generation of output files.

       -Lformat
              Use format to format line-number information for starred output
              files.  (If the option is omitted, a format suitable for C is
              used.)  format is as defined by notangle(1);

       -markup parser
              Use parser to parse the input file.  Enables use of noweb tools
              on files in other formats; for example, the numarkup parser
              understands nuweb(1) format.  See nowebfilters(7) for more
              information.  For experts only.


BUGS

       Ignoring unused chunks whose names contain spaces sometimes causes
       problems, especially in the case when a chunk has multiple definitions
       and one is misspelled; the misspelled definition will be silently
       ignored.  noroots(1) can be used as a sanity checker to catch this sort
       of mistake.

       noweb is intended for users who don't want the power or the complexity
       of command-line options.  More sophisticated users should avoid noweb
       and use noweave and notangle instead.  If the design were better, we
       could all use the same commands.

       noweb requires the new version of awk, assumed to be called nawk.  DEC
       nawk has a bug in that that causes problems with braces in TeX output.
       GNU gawk is reported to work.

       The default LaTeX pagestyles don't set the width of the boxes
       containing headers and footers.  Since noweb code paragraphs are extra
       wide, this LaTeX bug sometimes results in extra-wide headers and
       footers.  The remedy is to redefine the relevant ps@* commands;
       ps@noweb in noweb.sty can be used as an example.


SEE ALSO

       notangle(1), noweave(1), noroots(1), nountangle(1), nowebstyle(7),
       nowebfilters(7), nuweb2noweb(1)
       Norman Ramsey, Literate programming simplified, IEEE Software
       11(5):97-105, September 1994.


VERSION

       This man page is from noweb version 2.11b.


AUTHOR

       Norman Ramsey, Harvard University.  Internet address
       nr@eecs.harvard.edu.
       Noweb home page at http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~nr/noweb.

                                local 3/28/2001                       NOWEB(1)

Search: Section: