MAKEFAQ.PY(1)MAKEFAQ.PY(1)NAME
makefaq.py - creates a FAQ HTML page or text file
SYNOPSIS
makefaq.py [-h] [-v] [-n] [-N] [-l] [-j] [-s] [-r 1] [-c config-name]
[-i input-file] [-o output-file] [-t header-file] [-b footer-file] [-d
delimiter]
DESCRIPTION
makefaq.py is a Python program that creates a Frequently Asked Ques‐
tions (FAQ) HTML page or text file from a specially formatted text data
file.
OPTIONS-h Display help
-n Do "nothing" - check config but skip file processing
-N Suppresses the numbering of questions.
-l List all configurations
-v Display config settings
-s Sort categories in alphabetical ordeer
-j Adds a link after each entry to jump to top of page
-i input-file
Default is 'faq.dat'
-o output-file
Default is 'faq.html'
-t header-file
Default is 'faqheader.html'
-b footer-file
Default is 'faqfooter.html'
-L locale
Reads LANG environment variable or defaults to 'en_US'
-r 1 Revert to old, single-line data file format
Note that if the '-r' is used to revert to the old file format,
the following option may be used to change the delimiter.
-d delimiter
default is the pipe character ('|')
It has no effect if the '-r' option is not used.
EXAMPLE
makefaq.py -c default -i input.dat -o output.html
CONFIGURATIONS
makefaq.py includes five configurations in the code:
default - standard files, writes to faq.html
text - standard files, writes to faq.txt
screen - standard files, writes to screen
DocBookXML - standard files, writes to faq-output.xml
BEAST - uses header of 'html.1.faq' and footer of
'html.2.faq', writes to faq.html
This last config is one Dave uses for http://beast.gtk.org/ and is pro‐
vided as an example of how you might set up your own configuration.
MULTI-LINE ENTRIES
With version 2.0, there is a new format for the data file. Instead of
entries being required to be on a single line separated by the pipe
('|') symbol, the file now uses and XML-ish format with the fields sep‐
arated by tags in angle brackets. For example:
<c>General
<q>When will the snow melt in Ottawa?
<a>I have <i>no</i> idea!
Note that as in the previous file format, HTML can be used in either
the question or answer field. The program simply looks for instances of
<c>, <q> and <a>. Note that at the moment, it *is* case-sensitive. If
you were to use <C>, it would NOT work properly.
As before, the first field, <c>, is the "category" of question, which
is used for grouping questions together in the FAQ output. You can
have as many or as few categories as you wish, but you must have at
least *one* category. You do not have to put all questions that are in
the same category together in the data file, as the program will
automagically put all those questions together. Note that the cate‐
gories will be output *in the order in which they first appear* in the
data file, unless the '-s' flag is used, in which case they will be
sorted alphabetically before being written out.
With this format, there are no spacing restrictions at all. You can
put them all on one line:
<c>General<q>When will the snow melt in Ottawa?<a>I have <i>no</i>
idea!
or you can put the tags on their own lines:
<c>
General
<q>
When will the snow melt in Ottawa?
<a>
I have <i> no</i> idea!
Or any combination of these formats. There is now *no* restriction on
the length of either questions or answers.
If you wish to use different delimiters than <c>, <q> and <a>, you can
either create your own "configuration" that overrides the DefaultConfig
settings for 'self.cdelim', 'self.qdelim' and 'self.adelim'... or sim‐
ply modify those variables in the DefaultConfig class definition.
INTERNATIONALIZATION
Up until version 2.0, makefaq always printed two strings in English:
"FAQ Revised:" and "Table of Contents". It then put the time in US for‐
mat after "FAQ Revised:". While this worked for many people, those
working with languages other than English wanted makefaq to automati‐
cally use the date format and wording appropriate for their language.
Thanks to the help of Guy Brand, I have added support to version 2.0
for localization of the makefaq output. In fact, it now will localize
the file *by default*. It first looks to see if you have defined the
LANG environment variable. If you have, the program will set your
locale equal to the contents of the LANG variable. It will then use
that variable to generate an appropriate time string and, in some
cases, the appropriate text strings.
For instance, if you are in the US, your LANG should be set to 'en_US'.
In France, it will be 'fr_FR'. In Germany, 'de_DE'. In Italy, 'it'.
If you do not have the LANG variable set, the program will default to
'en_US', which is really the pre-2.0 behavior.
If you do not have the LANG variable set, but want to modify the
locale, the easiest option is to use the '-L' (upper case) command-line
option to set the locale to whatever you want. For example:
./makefaq.py -L 'fr_FR'
It will work fine with any other command-line options.
You also can edit the makefaq.py file directly and change the LOCALE
variable at the very top of the file. Note that this variable is ONLY
consulted if LANG is *NOT* defined in your operating system environ‐
ment. If LANG *is* defined, that value will be used and the LOCALE
variable will not be used at all.
Once the locale is set, the appropriate time string will be generated
in all cases. However, at the time I am writing this, there are only
three cases where the appropriate text strings will be written out:
en_US, fr_FR, and de_DE. Those are the only languages for which I have
the appropriate strings.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADD YOUR LANGUAGE, simply add a block of text that
looks like:
elif lc == 'de_DE':
cfg.RevString = 'FAQ �berarbeitet am:'
cfg.TOCString = 'Inhalt'
to the function "LocalizeStrings" inside of makefaq.py. I would also
ask that you send the information about your locale and text strings to
me at 'dyork@Lodestar2.com' so that I can add them to the program for
others to use.
BUGS
Mail me if you find any.
AUTHOR
Dan York <dyork@lodestar2.com>
The author acknowledges significant contributions to the code by Dave
Seidel (dave@superluminal.com) and he can definitely considered as the
co-author of this code.
SEE ALSOpython(1)
11 Nov 2002 MAKEFAQ.PY(1)
