conversions were done using https://github.com/pennae/nix-doc-munge
using (probably) rev f34e145 running
nix-doc-munge nixos/**/*.nix
nix-doc-munge --import nixos/**/*.nix
the tool ensures that only changes that could affect the generated
manual *but don't* are committed, other changes require manual review
and are discarded.
mostly no rendering changes. some lists (like simplelist) don't have an
exact translation to markdown, so we use a comma-separated list of
literals instead.
now nix-doc-munge will not introduce whitespace changes when it replaces
manpage references with the MD equivalent.
no change to the manpage, changes to the HTML manual are whitespace only.
make (almost) all links appear on only a single line, with no
unnecessary whitespace, using double quotes for attributes. this lets us
automatically convert them to markdown easily.
the few remaining links are extremely long link in a gnome module, we'll
come back to those at a later date.
markdown can't represent the difference without another extension and
both the html manual and the manpage render them the same, so keeping the
distinction is not very useful on its own. with the distinction removed
we can automatically convert many options that use <code> tags to markdown.
the manpage remains unchanged, html manual does not render
differently (but class names on code tags do change from "code" to "literal").
the conversion procedure is simple:
- find all things that look like options, ie calls to either `mkOption`
or `lib.mkOption` that take an attrset. remember the attrset as the
option
- for all options, find a `description` attribute who's value is not a
call to `mdDoc` or `lib.mdDoc`
- textually convert the entire value of the attribute to MD with a few
simple regexes (the set from mdize-module.sh)
- if the change produced a change in the manual output, discard
- if the change kept the manual unchanged, add some text to the
description to make sure we've actually found an option. if the
manual changes this time, keep the converted description
this procedure converts 80% of nixos options to markdown. around 2000
options remain to be inspected, but most of those fail the "does not
change the manual output check": currently the MD conversion process
does not faithfully convert docbook tags like <code> and <package>, so
any option using such tags will not be converted at all.
