Create a documentation task that will generate the RDoc files for a project.

The RDocTask will create the following targets:

:rdoc
Main task for this RDOC task.
:clobber_rdoc
Delete all the rdoc files. This target is automatically added to the main clobber target.
:rerdoc
Rebuild the rdoc files from scratch, even if they are not out of date.

Simple example:

  Rake::RDocTask.new do |rd|
    rd.main = "README.rdoc"
    rd.rdoc_files.include("README.rdoc", "lib/**/*.rb")
  end

The rd object passed to the block is an RDocTask object. See the attributes list for the RDocTask class for available customization options.

Specifying different task names

You may wish to give the task a different name, such as if you are generating two sets of documentation. For instance, if you want to have a development set of documentation including private methods:

  Rake::RDocTask.new(:rdoc_dev) do |rd|
    rd.main = "README.doc"
    rd.rdoc_files.include("README.rdoc", "lib/**/*.rb")
    rd.options << "--all"
  end

The tasks would then be named :rdoc_dev, :clobber_rdoc_dev, and :rerdoc_dev.

If you wish to have completely different task names, then pass a Hash as first argument. With the :rdoc, :clobber_rdoc and :rerdoc options, you can customize the task names to your liking. For example:

  Rake::RDocTask.new(:rdoc => "rdoc", :clobber_rdoc => "rdoc:clean", :rerdoc => "rdoc:force")

This will create the tasks :rdoc, :rdoc_clean and :rdoc:force.

Methods
Attributes
[RW] external Whether to run the rdoc process as an external shell (default is false)
[RW] inline_source
[RW] main Name of file to be used as the main, top level file of the RDoc. (default is none)
[RW] name Name of the main, top level task. (default is :rdoc)
[RW] options Additional list of options to be passed rdoc. (default is [])
[RW] rdoc_dir Name of directory to receive the html output files. (default is "html")
[RW] rdoc_files List of files to be included in the rdoc generation. (default is [])
[RW] template Name of template to be used by rdoc. (defaults to rdoc‘s default)
[RW] title Title of RDoc documentation. (defaults to rdoc‘s default)
Public Class methods
new(name = :rdoc) {|self| ...}

Create an RDoc task with the given name. See the RDocTask class overview for documentation.

     # File lib/rake/rdoctask.rb, line 89
 89:     def initialize(name = :rdoc)  # :yield: self
 90:       if name.is_a?(Hash)
 91:         invalid_options = name.keys.map { |k| k.to_sym } - [:rdoc, :clobber_rdoc, :rerdoc]
 92:         if !invalid_options.empty?
 93:           raise ArgumentError, "Invalid option(s) passed to RDocTask.new: #{invalid_options.join(", ")}"
 94:         end
 95:       end
 96:       
 97:       @name = name
 98:       @rdoc_files = Rake::FileList.new
 99:       @rdoc_dir = 'html'
100:       @main = nil
101:       @title = nil
102:       @template = nil
103:       @external = false
104:       @inline_source = true
105:       @options = []
106:       yield self if block_given?
107:       define
108:     end
Public Instance methods
before_running_rdoc(&block)

The block passed to this method will be called just before running the RDoc generator. It is allowed to modify RDocTask attributes inside the block.

     # File lib/rake/rdoctask.rb, line 171
171:     def before_running_rdoc(&block)
172:       @before_running_rdoc = block
173:     end
define()

Create the tasks defined by this task lib.

     # File lib/rake/rdoctask.rb, line 111
111:     def define
112:       if rdoc_task_name != "rdoc"
113:         desc "Build the RDOC HTML Files"
114:       else
115:         desc "Build the #{rdoc_task_name} HTML Files"
116:       end
117:       task rdoc_task_name
118:       
119:       desc "Force a rebuild of the RDOC files"
120:       task rerdoc_task_name => [clobber_task_name, rdoc_task_name]
121:       
122:       desc "Remove rdoc products" 
123:       task clobber_task_name do
124:         rm_r rdoc_dir rescue nil
125:       end
126:       
127:       task :clobber => [clobber_task_name]
128:       
129:       directory @rdoc_dir
130:       task rdoc_task_name => [rdoc_target]
131:       file rdoc_target => @rdoc_files + [Rake.application.rakefile] do
132:         rm_r @rdoc_dir rescue nil
133:         @before_running_rdoc.call if @before_running_rdoc
134:         args = option_list + @rdoc_files
135:         if @external
136:           argstring = args.join(' ')
137:           sh %{ruby -Ivendor vender/rd #{argstring}}
138:         else
139:           require 'rdoc/rdoc'
140:           RDoc::RDoc.new.document(args)
141:         end
142:       end
143:       self
144:     end
option_list()
     # File lib/rake/rdoctask.rb, line 146
146:     def option_list
147:       result = @options.dup
148:       result << "-o" << @rdoc_dir
149:       result << "--main" << quote(main) if main
150:       result << "--title" << quote(title) if title
151:       result << "-T" << quote(template) if template
152:       result << "--inline-source" if inline_source && !@options.include?("--inline-source") && !@options.include?("-S")
153:       result
154:     end
option_string()
     # File lib/rake/rdoctask.rb, line 164
164:     def option_string
165:       option_list.join(' ')
166:     end
quote(str)
     # File lib/rake/rdoctask.rb, line 156
156:     def quote(str)
157:       if @external
158:         "'#{str}'"
159:       else
160:         str
161:       end
162:     end