Re: documentation string in MCL

[bill@cambridge.apple.com (Bill St. Clair)]

>Is there a way to have the documentation strings in user defined
>functions, e.g.
>
>(defun foo (x)
>  "Foo computes the foo of x."
> nil)
>
>show up in the nice format that system functions entered in the MCL help
>file show up when using the documentation window? There the args are shown
>and special fonts are used.

First off, you need to compile or evaluate your definitions with
*save-doc-strings* true or your doc strings will not be retained.
This is not the default.

I have prepared a patch that will adds arglists to the information
displayed in the documentation window for a function whose documentation
is not in the "MCL Help" file. It does pretty fonts on the arglist, but
has no way to add fonts to your descriptive text. If you want fonts in
your text, you'll have to add entries to the "MCL Help" file and
use the file "ccl:library;make-help-map.lisp" to recreate the
"MCL Help Map.fasl" file. "ccl:library;make-help-map.lisp" documents
the format of the "MCL Help" file.

If you want the patch that adds arglists to the documentation window
output for user defined functions, ask me for "documentation-patch".
This patch will be part of patch 2 for MCL 2.0.

The patch will work better if you set *save-local-symbols*,
*fasl-save-local-symbols*, and ccl::*save-arglist-info* true.
This will ensure that all of the arglist names are retained (at
some expense in space: 10-20% I believe).