Literate is a package that generate markdown pages (for e.g. Documenter.jl), and Jupyter notebooks, from the same source file. There is also an option to "clean" the source from all metadata, and produce a pure Julia script.
The main design goal is simplicity. It should be simple to use, and the syntax should be simple. In short, all you have to do is to write a commented julia script!
The public interface consists mainly of three functions, which all takes the same script file as input, but generates different output:
Examples are (probably) the best way to showcase your awesome package, and examples are often the best way for a new user to learn how to use it. It is therefore important that the documentation of your package contains examples for users to read and study. However, people are different, and we all prefer different ways of trying out a new package. Some people wants to RTFM, others want to explore the package interactively in, for example, a notebook, and some people wants to study the source code. The aim of Literate is to make it easy to give the user all of these options, while still keeping maintenance to a minimum.
It is quite common that packages have "example notebooks" to showcase the package. Notebooks are great for showcasing a package, but they are not so great with version control, like git. The reason being that a notebook is a very "rich" format since it contains output and other metadata. Changes to the notebook thus result in large diffs, which makes it harder to review the actual changes.
It is also common that packages include examples in the documentation, for example by using Documenter.jl@example-blocks. This is also great, but it is not quite as interactive as a notebook, for the users who prefer that.
Literate tries to solve the problems above by creating the output as a part of the doc build. Literate generates the output based on a single source file which makes it easier to maintain, test, and keep the manual and your example notebooks in sync.
Literate is a package that generates markdown pages (for e.g. Documenter.jl), and Jupyter notebooks, from the same source file. There is also an option to "clean" the source from all metadata, and produce a pure Julia script.
The main design goal is simplicity. It should be simple to use, and the syntax should be simple. In short, all you have to do is to write a commented julia script!
The public interface consists mainly of three functions, all of which take the same script file as input, but generate different output:
Examples are (probably) the best way to showcase your awesome package, and examples are often the best way for a new user to learn how to use it. It is therefore important that the documentation of your package contains examples for users to read and study. However, people are different, and we all prefer different ways of trying out a new package. Some people wants to RTFM, others want to explore the package interactively in, for example, a notebook, and some people wants to study the source code. The aim of Literate is to make it easy to give the user all of these options, while still keeping maintenance to a minimum.
It is quite common that packages have "example notebooks" to showcase the package. Notebooks are great for showcasing a package, but they are not so great with version control, like git. The reason being that a notebook is a very "rich" format since it contains output and other metadata. Changes to the notebook thus result in large diffs, which makes it harder to review the actual changes.
It is also common that packages include examples in the documentation, for example by using Documenter.jl@example-blocks. This is also great, but it is not quite as interactive as a notebook, for the users who prefer that.
Literate tries to solve the problems above by creating the output as a part of the doc build. Literate generates the output based on a single source file which makes it easier to maintain, test, and keep the manual and your example notebooks in sync.
diff --git a/latest/outputformats.html b/latest/outputformats.html
index f4e9a86..49dbb22 100644
--- a/latest/outputformats.html
+++ b/latest/outputformats.html
@@ -31,8 +31,8 @@ When adding `x` and `y` together we obtain a new rational number:
```@example name
z = x + y
-```
We note that lines starting with # are printed as regular markdown, and the code lines have been wrapped in @example blocks. We also note that an @meta block have been added, that sets the EditURL variable. This is used by Documenter to redirect the "Edit on GitHub" link for the page, see Interaction with Documenter.
Some of the output rendering can be controlled with keyword arguments to Literate.markdown:
Generate a markdown file from inputfile and write the result to the directoryoutputdir.
Keyword arguments:
name: name of the output file, excluding .md. name is also used to name all the @example blocks, and to replace @__NAME__. Defaults to the filename of inputfile.
preprocess, postprocess: custom pre- and post-processing functions, see the Custom pre- and post-processing section of the manual. Defaults to identity.
documenter: boolean that tells if the output is intended to use with Documenter.jl. Defaults to true. See the the manual section on Interaction with Documenter.
codefence: A Pair of opening and closing code fence. Defaults to
The (default) notebook output of the source snippet can be seen here: notebook.ipynb.
We note that lines starting with # are placed in markdown cells, and the code lines have been placed in code cells. By default the notebook is also executed and output cells populated. The current working directory is set to the specified output directory the notebook is executed. Some of the output rendering can be controlled with keyword arguments to Literate.notebook:
Generate a notebook from inputfile and write the result to outputdir.
Keyword arguments:
name: name of the output file, excluding .ipynb. name is also used to replace @__NAME__. Defaults to the filename of inputfile.
preprocess, postprocess: custom pre- and post-processing functions, see the Custom pre- and post-processing section of the manual. Defaults to identity.
execute: a boolean deciding if the generated notebook should also be executed or not. Defaults to true. The current working directory is set to outputdir when executing the notebook.
documenter: boolean that says if the source contains Documenter.jl specific things to filter out during notebook generation. Defaults to true. See the the manual section on Interaction with Documenter.
The (default) script output of the source snippet above is as follows
x = 1//3
+```
We note that lines starting with # are printed as regular markdown, and the code lines have been wrapped in @example blocks. We also note that an @meta block have been added, that sets the EditURL variable. This is used by Documenter to redirect the "Edit on GitHub" link for the page, see Interaction with Documenter.
Some of the output rendering can be controlled with keyword arguments to Literate.markdown:
Generate a markdown file from inputfile and write the result to the directoryoutputdir.
Keyword arguments:
name: name of the output file, excluding .md. name is also used to name all the @example blocks, and to replace @__NAME__. Defaults to the filename of inputfile.
preprocess, postprocess: custom pre- and post-processing functions, see the Custom pre- and post-processing section of the manual. Defaults to identity.
documenter: boolean that tells if the output is intended to use with Documenter.jl. Defaults to true. See the the manual section on Interaction with Documenter.
codefence: A Pair of opening and closing code fence. Defaults to
The (default) notebook output of the source snippet can be seen here: notebook.ipynb.
We note that lines starting with # are placed in markdown cells, and the code lines have been placed in code cells. By default the notebook is also executed and output cells populated. The current working directory is set to the specified output directory the notebook is executed. Some of the output rendering can be controlled with keyword arguments to Literate.notebook:
Generate a notebook from inputfile and write the result to outputdir.
Keyword arguments:
name: name of the output file, excluding .ipynb. name is also used to replace @__NAME__. Defaults to the filename of inputfile.
preprocess, postprocess: custom pre- and post-processing functions, see the Custom pre- and post-processing section of the manual. Defaults to identity.
execute: a boolean deciding if the generated notebook should also be executed or not. Defaults to true. The current working directory is set to outputdir when executing the notebook.
documenter: boolean that says if the source contains Documenter.jl specific things to filter out during notebook generation. Defaults to true. See the the manual section on Interaction with Documenter.
The (default) script output of the source snippet above is as follows
x = 1//3
y = 2//5
-z = x + y
We note that lines starting with # are removed and only the code lines have been kept. Some of the output rendering can be controlled with keyword arguments to Literate.script:
Generate a plain script file from inputfile and write the result to outputdir.
Keyword arguments:
name: name of the output file, excluding .jl. name is also used to replace @__NAME__. Defaults to the filename of inputfile.
preprocess, postprocess: custom pre- and post-processing functions, see the Custom pre- and post-processing section of the manual. Defaults to identity.
documenter: boolean that says if the source contains Documenter.jl specific things to filter out during script generation. Defaults to true. See the the manual section on Interaction with Documenter.
keep_comments: boolean that, if set to true, keeps markdown lines as comments in the output script. Defaults to false.