A dotnet tool or MsBuild Task that extract snippets from code files and merges them into markdown documents.
See Milestones for release notes.
.net 8 or higher is required to run the dotnet tool.
Automatically extract snippets from code and injecting them into markdown documents has several benefits:
- Snippets can be verified by a compiler or parser.
- Tests can be run on snippets, or snippets can be pulled from existing tests.
- Changes in code are automatically reflected in documentation.
- Snippets are less likely to get out of sync with the main code-base.
- Snippets in markdown is easier to create and maintain since any preferred editor can be used to edit them.
- Recursively scan the target directory for code files containing snippets. (See exclusion).
- Recursively scan the target directory for markdown (
.mdormdx) files. (See Document Scanning). - Merge the snippets into those markdown files.
Ensure dotnet CLI is installed.
Install MarkdownSnippets.Tool
dotnet tool install -g MarkdownSnippets.ToolSee also: MsBuild Task usage
mdsnippets C:\Code\TargetDirectoryIf no directory is passed the current directory will be used, but only if it exists with a git repository directory tree. If not an error is returned.
There are two approaches scanning and modifying markdown files.
This is the default.
The file convention recursively scans the target directory for all *.source.md files. Once snippets are merged the .source.md to produce .md files. So for example readme.source.md would be merged with snippets to produce readme.md. Note that this process will overwrite any existing .md files that have matching .source.md files.
There is a secondary convention that leverages the use of a directory named mdsource. Where .source.md files are placed in a mdsource sub-directory, the mdsource part of the file path will be removed when calculating the target path. This allows the .source.md to be grouped in a sub directory and avoid cluttering up the main documentation directory.
When using the mdsource convention, all references to other files, such as links and images, should specify the full path from the root of the repository. This will allow those links to work correctly in both the source and generated markdown files. Relative paths cannot work for both the source and the target file.
Recursively scans the target directory for all *.md files and merges snippets into those files.
mdsnippets -c InPlaceOverwritemdsnippets --convention InPlaceOverwriteCan be enabled in mdsnippets.json config file.
{
"Convention": "InPlaceOverwrite"
}- Ensure
"WriteHeader": falseis used inmdsnippets.json. - Ensure
"ReadOnly": falseis used inmdsnippets.json. - Ensure using the current stable version and a docs generation has run.
- Delete all
.source.mdfiles. - Modify
mdsnippets.jsonto add"Convention": "InPlaceOverwrite". - Run the docs generation.
To mark the resulting documents files as read only use -r or --read-only.
This can be helpful in preventing incorrectly editing the documents file instead of the .source. file conventions.
mdsnippets -r truemdsnippets --read-only trueAny code wrapped in a convention based comment will be picked up. The comment needs to start with begin-snippet: which is followed by the key. The snippet is then terminated by end-snippet.
// begin-snippet: MySnippetName
My Snippet Code
// end-snippet
Named C# regions will also be picked up, with the name of the region used as the key.
To stop regions collapsing in Visual Studio disable 'enter outlining mode when files open'. See Visual Studio outlining.
Urls to files to be included as snippets. Space separated for multiple values.
Each url will be accessible using the file name as a key. Any snippets within the files will be extracted and accessible as individual keyed snippets.
mdsnippets --urls-as-snippets "https://github.com/SimonCropp/MarkdownSnippets/snippet.cs"mdsnippets -u "https://github.com/SimonCropp/MarkdownSnippets/snippet.cs"The keyed snippets can be used in any documentation .md file by adding the text snippet: KEY.
Then snippets with that key.
For example
Some blurb about the below snippet snippet: MySnippetName
The resulting markdown will be:
<!-- snippet: MySnippetName -->
Some blurb about the below snippet
<a id='snippet-MySnippetName'></a>
```
My Snippet Code
```
<sup><a href='/relativeUrlToFile#L1-L11' title='Snippet source file'>snippet source</a> | <a href='#snippet-MySnippetName' title='Start of snippet'>anchor</a></sup>
<!-- endSnippet -->
Notes:
- The vertical bar ( | ) is used to separate adjacent links as per web accessibility recommendations: https://webaim.org/techniques/hypertext/hypertext_links#groups
- H33: Supplementing link text with the title attribute
Snippets that start with http will be downloaded and the contents rendered. For example:
snippet: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SimonCropp/MarkdownSnippets/master/license.txt
Will render:
<!-- snippet: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SimonCropp/MarkdownSnippets/master/license.txt -->
<a id='snippet-https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SimonCropp/MarkdownSnippets/master/license.txt'></a>
```txt
The MIT License (MIT)
...
```
<sup><a href='#snippet-https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SimonCropp/MarkdownSnippets/master/license.txt' title='Snippet source file'>anchor</a></sup>
<!-- endSnippet -->
Files are downloaded to %temp%MarkdownSnippets with a maximum of 100 files kept.
If no snippet is found matching the defined name. The target directory will be searched for a file matching that name. For example:
snippet: license.txt
Will render:
<!-- snippet: license.txt -->
<a id='snippet-license.txt'></a>
```txt
The MIT License (MIT)
...
```
<sup><a href='#snippet-license.txt' title='Start of snippet'>anchor</a></sup>
<!-- endSnippet -->
Defines the format of snippet source links that appear under each snippet.
mdsnippets --link-format Bitbucketmdsnippets -l Bitbucketsnippet: LinkFormat.cs
Link format None will omit the source link but still keep the snippet anchor.
The links below a snippet can be omitted.
mdsnippets --omit-snippet-links true{
"OmitSnippetLinks": true
}
snippet: BuildLink
UrlPrefix allows a string to be defined that will prefix all snippet links. This is helpful when the markdown file are being hosted on a site that is not co-located with the source code files. It can be defined in the config file, the MsBuild task, and the dotnet tool.
mdsnippets --url-prefix "TheUrlPrefix"{
"UrlPrefix": "TheUrlPrefix"
}
Use src/context-menu.reg to add MarkdownSnippets to the Windows Explorer context menu.
snippet: context-menu.reg
include: doc-index
Loosely based on some code from https://github.com/shiftkey/scribble.
Down by Alfredo Creates from The Noun Project.