🚀 go-pugleaf

Phil Hirschhorn writes:

 > I'd like to print out the documentation contained in the comments of
 > the file latex.tex.  I've got the multicol package, but it seems to
 > require a "driver" file to correctly format the documentation.  Does
 > anyone know where I can get the driver for the latex.tex
 > documentation?

You have to be aware that latex.tex is not in self documenting format.
The best you can get without much effort is a verbatim listing of
latex.tex with line numbers, and an index of all macros containing the
numbers of all the lines where a macro is used. To this end, use a
driver file like this:

\documentstyle[doc]{article}

\CodelineIndex

\begin{document}
  \IndexInput{latex.tex}
  \PrintIndex
\end{document}

Beware that this takes a long time and produces a lot of complaints
about overfull boxes (easily avoided by increasing \textwidth). You
can then generate the sorted index file as follows (assuming your
driver file was called driver.tex):

makeindex -s gind.ist driver

Then you have to run the driver again, but this time you may want to
add the \DisableCrossrefs command to speed up processing.

You can also write

\setcounter{IndexColumns}{number}

to change the number of columns for the index (default is 3).

 > More generally, does anyone know where I can find an explanation of
 > how this whole docstrip/documentation producing business works, and
 > how I write the "driver" to produce the documentation in other
 > self-documenting files?

Apart from the original publication in TUGboat some years ago, there
isn't anything available yet.  Wait another two weeks, then we will
distribute the new version of doc, complete with documentation.


   Rainer Schoepf
   Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum                       ,,Ich mag es nicht, wenn
    fuer Informationstechnik Berlin            sich die Dinge so frueh
   Heilbronner Strasse 10                      am Morgen schon so
   W-1000 Berlin 31                            dynamisch entwickeln!''
   Federal Republic of Germany
   <Schoepf@sc.ZIB-Berlin.de> or <Schoepf@sc.ZIB-Berlin.dbp.de>