essim/doc

essim documentation

Auto-generated API reference and high-level design notes for the essim system digital twin.

Layout

• user/ — user-facing docs (hand-written intro/tutorial
  • auto-generated command reference). Start at user/index.md.
• api/ — developer-facing API reference (Doxygen XML → custom Markdown emitter). Browse classes and files directly in gitea's Markdown renderer. Top page: api/index.md.
• ../DESIGN.md — implementation notes: domain conventions, TUI flow, gotchas. Hand-maintained.
• classes.puml — PlantUML class diagram for the domain model. Render with plantuml classes.puml for a PNG/SVG.
• Doxyfile.in / gen_api_md.py — the toolchain (templated Doxygen config + custom XML→Markdown emitter).

Regenerating the API reference

The Markdown tree under doc/api/ is committed so it's readable directly on gitea. After substantive code changes, regenerate it:

# 1. Tooling (once): Doxygen, plus a Python 3 interpreter (already on Arch).
pacman -S doxygen

# 2. Configure once (or after editing doc/Doxyfile.in):
cmake -S . -B build

# 3. Regenerate:
cmake --build build --target doc

# 4. Review and commit the updated doc/api/ tree:
git add doc/api/
git status doc/api/

Pipeline:

src/**/*.{hpp,cpp}  ──┐
README.md            ─┼─► doxygen ─► build/doc/xml/  ─► gen_api_md.py ─► doc/api/
DESIGN.md            ─┘            (Doxyfile.in)

(built essim) ────────► essim --commands-md ──────────────────────────► doc/user/commands.md

doc/user/index.md and doc/user/scripting.md are hand-written; only doc/user/commands.md is regenerated. The doc target depends on the essim binary so a stale build is rebuilt before the dump is taken.

If either Doxygen or Python 3 is missing at CMake-configure time the doc target is silently disabled (the regular build still works) and a status line is emitted in the CMake log telling you which one to install.

Why a custom emitter rather than doxybook2 / moxygen

• doxybook2 is not packaged in Arch / AUR and gets stale upstream.
• moxygen drags Node into a pure-C++ project.
• The emitter is one Python file (gen_api_md.py, ~330 lines) with zero external dependencies — easy to read, easy to tweak, robust to Doxygen version changes (the XML schema is stable).

Tailor the output by editing gen_api_md.py directly: add columns to the class table, change the source-link format, group sections differently, etc.

Comment style

The codebase uses standard Doxygen markers:

• /// for single-line briefs.
• /** … */ for multi-line blocks.
• @param, @return, @brief (or @short) tags inside blocks.
• @throws for exceptions a function may raise.

JAVADOC_AUTOBRIEF = YES is set so the first sentence of a multi-line comment counts as the brief description without needing an explicit @brief tag.