happy-ferret / cargo-external-doc

integrate markdown files with your rustdoc generated documentation

cargo external-doc

This tool allows you to add markdown files to your crate's documentation generated with rustdoc.

The documentation generated by rustdoc is meant for code and API references, and does not offer a nice way to add long form documentation. This tool will fix that until rustlang/cargo#739 is implemented.

Installation

cargo external-doc is installed via cargo install:

$ cargo install cargo-external-doc

Usage

Put your articles written in markdown in the doc/ subfolder of your project (see nom for an example).

rustdoc requires that the files are prefixed with a title like this:

% Your title here

Now, run cargo build then cargo external-doc. This tool will:

• call cargo doc
• test the code examples in the files from doc/
• generate html files consistent with rustdoc's templates and put them in target/doc/your_crate

Your other documentation files can reference it by relative URL, like this for a doc/guide.md file:

cf the [guide](guide.html)

Example

In nom, you can see:

• the doc/ folder
• the online reference with links to articles
• the links in src/lib.rs
• the parser writing article and its source

Caveats

This tool is a temporary solution, until something better is integrated in cargo doc.

It does not support overriding values like the target path.

It relies on the target/debug/libyourcrate.rlib file existing.

It does not check for invalid links.

It is not configurable.

It fits a need I have for nom, and it might not fit what you want. I'm open to modification ideas and patches, but I'd prefer to see it implemented correctly in cargo doc instead.