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March 10, 2025 22:25
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Tomdoc Cheatsheet

A concise cheat sheet for Tomdoc, a documentation style emphasizing clarity through simple conventions. This guide covers syntax, tags, and best practices for generating understandable and maintainable documentation.

Tomdoc Basics

General Structure

Tomdoc uses a simple structure to document code:

  1. Public: or Internal: tag
  2. A description of what the code does.
  3. Arguments (if any).
  4. Examples (if applicable).
  5. Return value.

The key is to keep it concise and focused on what the code does, not how it does it.

Tags

Public:

Indicates the method or class is part of the public API and intended for external use.

Internal:

Indicates the method or class is for internal use only and not part of the public API.

Deprecated:

Marks the method as deprecated, optionally including information about alternatives.

Arguments

List arguments with their descriptions and types.

# text - The String to be duplicated.
# count - The Integer number of times to duplicate the text.

Examples and Returns

Examples

Provide clear examples of how to use the code.

# Examples
#
#   multiplex('Tom', 4)
#   # => 'TomTomTomTom'

Returns

Describe the return value, including its type and meaning.

# Returns the duplicated String.

Putting it Together 

# Public: Duplicate some text an arbitrary number of times.
#
# text  - The String to be duplicated.
# count - The Integer number of times to duplicate the text.
#
# Examples
#
#   multiplex('Tom', 4)
#   # => 'TomTomTomTom'
#
# Returns the duplicated String.
def multiplex(text, count)
  text * count
end

Advanced Tomdoc

Options Hashes

Document options hashes, including keys, types, and descriptions.

# options - The Hash options used to refine the selection (default: {})
#           :color  - The String color to restrict by (optional).
#           :weight - The Float weight to restrict by.

Yields

Describe what the code yields, including the type of yielded values.

# Yields the Integer index of the iteration.

Raises

Document any exceptions that may be raised.

# Raises Errno::ENOENT if the file can't be found.

Signatures and Style

Signatures (for DSLs)

Use signatures to describe the syntax of DSLs.

# Signature
#
#   find_by_<field>[_and_<field>...](args)

Style Considerations

  • Keep descriptions concise and focused.
  • Use complete sentences.
  • Prefer active voice.
  • Write from the perspective of someone using the code.
  • Be consistent with formatting.

Example of Bad Tomdoc 

# Public
# Returns a string with the text multiplied by count
def multiplex(text, count)
  text * count
end

This is bad because it doesn’t specify argument types and lacks an example