Table of Contents Generator

Description

This is a Python module and command-line tool that can parse a document and produce a programmatically-generated table of contents for that document. In fact, the Table of Contents of this README.md file was produced using tocgen. The table can be output to STDOUT or written to file.

Input and output formats can be mixed and matched. For example, the input file could be a Markdown document but the output Table of Contents could be specified as HTML. It is an extensible framework that supports additional formats for both parsing and output.

This is non-production software that is still under development. The API is subject to change (though it will be versioned). There is no guarantee that the parsers or writers implement the full language specifications. Currently, suggested usage is in interactive workflows when editing your own documents. Use at your own risk.

Table of Contents

• Description
• Supported Formats
• Installation
• Usage
• Examples
  • Command Line
  • From VIM
• Issues

Supported Formats

• Markdown
• HTML

More to come. Contributions welcome.

Installation

pip install "git+https://github.com/pegeler/tocgen"

Usage

usage: tocgen [-h] [-i INDENT] [-f {markdown,html}] [-c] [-o OUTFILE] infile

positional arguments:
  infile                The input file.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -i INDENT, --indent INDENT
                        The width of indentation.
  -f {markdown,html}, --format {markdown,html}
                        The output format. (default: markdown)
  -c, --use-custom-anchors
                        Activates extended Markdown syntax support for custom
                        heading anchors. For example, "## Introduction
                        {#intro}" will result in the heading text
                        "Introduction" and the anchor link "#intro". Ignored
                        if the input file is not ".md" extension.
  -o OUTFILE, --outfile OUTFILE
                        A file to write output. Writes to STDOUT if not
                        specified.

After installation, you will have access to a console utility called tocgen. Provide tocgen with the file name for which you would like to generate a table of contents. The output is sent to stdout by default, so it can be copy-pasted manually. Or you can output directly into the document with certain text editors like vim or emacs.

Examples

Command Line

The command tocgen README.md generates the output below, which represents the structure of this document. The output can be copied from the terminal and pasted into the file.

* [Description](#description)
* [Supported Formats](#supported-formats)
* [Installation](#installation)
* [Usage](#usage)
* [Examples](#examples)
    * [Command Line](#command-line)
    * [From VIM](#from-vim)
* [Issues](#issues-and-contributing)

From VIM

In command mode, bring your cursor to the location where you would like to insert the table of contents and type :r! tocgen %.

Issues and Contributing

This script is still under development. Anchor links may not be generated correctly with some formatting or special characters. If you find an example, please share in the form of an Issue or Pull Request!