view scripts/help/help.m @ 27918:b442ec6dda5c

use centralized file for copyright info for individual contributors * COPYRIGHT.md: New file. * In most other files, use "Copyright (C) YYYY-YYYY The Octave Project Developers" instead of tracking individual names in separate source files. The motivation is to reduce the effort required to update the notices each year. Until now, the Octave source files contained copyright notices that list individual contributors. I adopted these file-scope copyright notices because that is what everyone was doing 30 years ago in the days before distributed version control systems. But now, with many contributors and modern version control systems, having these file-scope copyright notices causes trouble when we update copyright years or refactor code. Over time, the file-scope copyright notices may become outdated as new contributions are made or code is moved from one file to another. Sometimes people contribute significant patches but do not add a line claiming copyright. Other times, people add a copyright notice for their contribution but then a later refactoring moves part or all of their contribution to another file and the notice is not moved with the code. As a practical matter, moving such notices is difficult -- determining what parts are due to a particular contributor requires a time-consuming search through the project history. Even managing the yearly update of copyright years is problematic. We have some contributors who are no longer living. Should we update the copyright dates for their contributions when we release new versions? Probably not, but we do still want to claim copyright for the project as a whole. To minimize the difficulty of maintaining the copyright notices, I would like to change Octave's sources to use what is described here: https://softwarefreedom.org/resources/2012/ManagingCopyrightInformation.html in the section "Maintaining centralized copyright notices": The centralized notice approach consolidates all copyright notices in a single location, usually a top-level file. This file should contain all of the copyright notices provided project contributors, unless the contribution was clearly insignificant. It may also credit -- without a copyright notice -- anyone who helped with the project but did not contribute code or other copyrighted material. This approach captures less information about contributions within individual files, recognizing that the DVCS is better equipped to record those details. As we mentioned before, it does have one disadvantage as compared to the file-scope approach: if a single file is separated from the distribution, the recipient won't see the contributors' copyright notices. But this can be easily remedied by including a single copyright notice in each file's header, pointing to the top-level file: Copyright YYYY-YYYY The Octave Project Developers See the COPYRIGHT file at the top-level directory of this distribution or at https://octave.org/COPYRIGHT.html. followed by the usual GPL copyright statement. For more background, see the discussion here: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/octave-maintainers/2020-01/msg00009.html Most files in the following directories have been skipped intentinally in this changeset: doc libgui/qterminal liboctave/external m4
author John W. Eaton <jwe@octave.org>
date Mon, 06 Jan 2020 15:38:17 -0500
parents 00f796120a6d
children 1891570abac8
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## Copyright (C) 2009-2019 The Octave Project Developers
##
## See the file COPYRIGHT.md in the top-level directory of this distribution
## or <https://octave.org/COPYRIGHT.html/>.
##
##
## This file is part of Octave.
##
## Octave is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it
## under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
## the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
## (at your option) any later version.
##
## Octave is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
## WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
## MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
## GNU General Public License for more details.
##
## You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
## along with Octave; see the file COPYING.  If not, see
## <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

## -*- texinfo -*-
## @deftypefn  {} {} help @var{name}
## @deftypefnx {} {} help --list
## @deftypefnx {} {} help .
## @deftypefnx {} {} help
## Display the help text for @var{name}.
##
## For example, the command @kbd{help help} prints a short message describing
## the @code{help} command.
##
## Given the single argument @code{--list}, list all operators, keywords,
## built-in functions, and loadable functions available in the current session
## of Octave.
##
## Given the single argument @code{.}, list all operators available in the
## current session of Octave.
##
## If invoked without any arguments, @code{help} displays instructions on how
## to access help from the command line.
##
## The help command can provide information about most operators, but
## @var{name} must be enclosed by single or double quotes to prevent
## the Octave interpreter from acting on @var{name}.  For example,
## @code{help "+"} displays help on the addition operator.
## @seealso{doc, lookfor, which, info}
## @end deftypefn

function retval = help (name)

  if (nargin == 0)

    text = "\n\
  For help with individual commands and functions type\n\
\n\
    help NAME\n\
\n\
  (replace NAME with the name of the command or function you would\n\
  like to learn more about; for an operator, enclose \"NAME\" in quotes).\n\
\n\
  For a more detailed introduction to GNU Octave, consult the manual.\n\
  The manual may be read from the prompt by typing\n\
\n\
    doc\n\
\n\
  GNU Octave is supported and developed by its user community.\n\
  For more information visit https://www.octave.org.\n\n";

    if (nargout == 0)
      puts (text);
    else
      retval = text;
    endif

  elseif (nargin == 1 && ischar (name))

    if (strcmp (name, "--list"))
      list = do_list_functions ();
      if (nargout == 0)
        printf ("%s", list);
      else
        retval = list;
      endif
      return;
    endif

    if (strcmp (name, "."))
      list = do_list_operators ();
      if (nargout == 0)
        printf ("%s", list);
      else
        retval = list;
      endif
      return;
    endif

    ## Get help text
    [text, format] = get_help_text (name);

    ## Take action depending on help text format
    switch (lower (format))
      case "plain text"
        status = 0;
      case "texinfo"
        [text, status] = __makeinfo__ (text, "plain text");
      case "html"
        [text, status] = strip_html_tags (text);
      case "not documented"
        error ("help: '%s' is not documented\n", name);
      case "not found"
        do_contents (name);
        return;
      otherwise
        error ("help: internal error: unsupported help text format: '%s'\n", format);
    endswitch

    ## Print text
    if (status != 0)
      warning ("help: Texinfo formatting filter exited abnormally; raw Texinfo source of help text follows...\n");
    endif

    if (nargout == 0)
      if (! any (strcmp (name, {'./', '.\', '...'})))
        evalin ("caller", ['which ("' undo_string_escapes(name) '")']);
      endif
      printf ("\n%s\n%s", text, __additional_help_message__ ());
    else
      retval = text;
    endif

  else
    error ("help: invalid input\n");
  endif

endfunction

function retval = do_list_operators ()
  retval = sprintf ("*** operators:\n\n%s\n%s\n\n",
                    list_in_columns (__operators__ ()),
                    ["To obtain help on an operator, type\n"...
                     "      help \"NAME\"   or   help 'NAME'"]);
endfunction

function retval = do_list_functions ()

  operators = do_list_operators ();

  keywords = sprintf ("*** keywords:\n\n%s\n\n",
                      list_in_columns (__keywords__ ()));

  builtins = sprintf ("*** builtins:\n\n%s\n\n",
                      list_in_columns (__builtins__ ()));

  dirs = ostrsplit (path, pathsep);
  flist = "";
  for i = 2:numel (dirs)
    files = sort ({dir(fullfile (dirs{i}, "*.m")).name, ...
                   dir(fullfile (dirs{i}, "*.oct")).name, ...
                   dir(fullfile (dirs{i}, "*.mex")).name});

    if (! isempty (files))
      flist = sprintf ("%s*** functions in %s:\n\n%s\n\n",
                       flist, dirs{i}, list_in_columns (files));
    endif
  endfor

  retval = [operators, keywords, builtins, flist];

endfunction

function do_contents (name)

  found = false;

  dlist = dir_in_loadpath (name, "all");

  for i = 1:numel (dlist)
    fname = make_absolute_filename (fullfile (dlist{i}, "Contents.m"));

    [text, format] = get_help_text_from_file (fname);

    ## Take action depending on help text format
    switch (lower (format))
      case "plain text"
        status = 0;
      case "texinfo"
        [text, status] = __makeinfo__ (text, "plain text");
      case "html"
        [text, status] = strip_html_tags (text);
    endswitch

    if (! isempty (text))
      found = true;
      ## Print text.
      if (status != 0)
        warning ("help: Texinfo formatting filter exited abnormally; raw Texinfo source of help text follows...\n");
      endif
      printf ("%s:\n\n%s\n", fname, text);
    endif

  endfor

  if (found)
    puts (__additional_help_message__ ());
  else
    msg = feval (missing_function_hook, name);

    if (isempty (msg))
      msg = sprintf ("'%s' not found", name);
    endif

    error ("help: %s\n", msg);
  endif

endfunction


%!assert (! isempty (strfind (help ("ls"), "List directory contents")))
%!assert (! isempty (strfind (help ("."), "||")))

## Test input validation
%!error <invalid input> help (42)
%!error <invalid input> help ("abc", "def")
%!error <'_! UNLIKELY_FCN! _' not found> help ("_! UNLIKELY_FCN! _")