Steffen wrote:
I guess a list of object and there relation can be fetched by parsing the code in CVS. The metadata could provide some description but not per object except for the cases where an external only have one object (or
this i don't understand.
I thought that the description was per object, hence not per group of externals. Fx. the metadata for zexy says "swiss army knife for pd". I can't just find one, but there could well be a group of externals with only one object, in which case the description of the group of externals would be the same as the for the that one object. So i most cases manual editing of descriptions would be needed especially if the description is to be per object.
hmm, i think i understand. the pdb should hold both accurate descriptions of objects and generic descriptions of libraries (if there is a library at all) appearently "swiss army kife for pd" doesn't tell you anything about [z~], which is probably what you are looking for.
apart from that: personally i am not convinced that the database should be created on the fly from CVS for various reasons:
- code would have to follow a certain outline in order to make this work
Ok. I thought that such outline was already established by m_pd.h or "the way" to write externals.
no, this won't help you. there is no point in documenting that the object understands "open <symbol>" messages, if you don't know what the object does. i always thought that pdb is not a help-patch replacement but a place to find an object that does certain things (like: being written by somebody ;-))
- separation between code and documentation is rather low (coders
usually hate to documentate their stuff; so a host of volunteers is needed to do the documentation; they don't necessarily need to interfere with the source-code for this task)
- accuracy tends to be low with automated systems
so i think that the database ought to be manually maintained.
Ok. I was just suggesting what i thought would be the easiest way to keep the database accuracy high, since, as you say, coders don't necessarily do the docs - or just might not see the use for a database. That's all.
i think we don't disagree here. i think most things i said are implicit in your original email. (i said: "use CVS to initially populate the db, but the real work is in maintaining the db manually")
mftgad IOhannes