SWI-Prolog Source Documentation Version 2
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  • Documentation
    • Reference manual
    • Packages
      • SWI-Prolog Source Documentation Version 2
        • Introduction
        • Overview
        • Structured comments
        • File (module) comments
        • Type, mode and determinism declaration headers
        • Tags: @see, etc.
        • Wiki notation
        • Directory indices
        • Documentation files
        • Running the documentation system
        • Motivation of choices
        • Compatibility and standards

1 Introduction

When developing Prolog source that has to be maintained for a longer period or is developed by a ---possibly distributed--- team some basic quality mechanisms need to be adopted. A shared and well designed codingstyle Covington et al., 2012 is one of them. In addition, documentation of source-files and their primary interfaces as well as a testing framework must be established.

In our view, hitherto existing documentation and testing frameworks fell short realising the basic needs in a lightweight and easy to adopt system. To encourage consistent style, well commented code and test-assisted development, we make sure that

  • The documentation and testing framework requires a minimum of work and learning.
  • The framework is immediately rewarding to the individual programmer as well as the team,

First, we describe the documentation system we developed for SWI-Prolog. In section 11 we motivate our main choices.