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6.3.1 Manual pages

It is very important to keep a manual file (preferably in the UNIX man format) online for every program. A program that does not have an accompanying manual page is not complete. Of course there is always the inline help (help=) that every NEMO program has.

To a lesser degree this also applies to the public libraries. A template roff sample can be found in example.8. We encourage authors to have a MINIMUM set of sections in a man-page as listed below. The ones with a '*' are considered somewhat less important:

NAME
the name of the beast.
SYNOPSIS
command line format or function prototype, include files needed etc.
DESCRIPTION
maybe a few lines of what it does, or not does.
PARAMETERS
description of parameters, their meaning and default values. This usually applies to programs only.
EXAMPLES
(*) in case non-trivial, but recommended anyhow
DEBUG
(*) at what debug levels what output appears.
SEE ALSO
(*) references to similar functions, more info
BUGS
(*) one prefers not to have this of course
TIMING
(*) performance, dependence on parameters if non-trivial
STORAGE
(*) storage requirements - mostly of importance when programs allocate memory dynamically, or when applicable for the programmer.
LIMITATIONS
(*) does it have any obvious limitations?
AUTHOR
who wrote it (a little credit is in its place) and/or who is responsible.
FILES
(*) in case non-trivial
HISTORY
date, version numbers, why updated, by whom (when created)


next up previous contents index
Next: 6.3.2 Makefiles Up: 6.3 Building NEMO programs Previous: 6.3 Building NEMO programs   Contents   Index
(c) Peter Teuben