Top Level Namespace

Extracts code elements from a source file returning a TopLevel object containing the constituent file elements.

This file is based on rtags

RubyParser understands how to document:

• classes

• modules

• methods

• constants

• aliases

• private, public, protected

• private_class_function, public_class_function

• private_constant, public_constant

• module_function

• attr, attr_reader, attr_writer, attr_accessor

• extra accessors given on the command line

• metaprogrammed methods

• require

• include

Method Arguments

The parser extracts the arguments from the method definition. You can override this with a custom argument definition using the :call-seq: directive:

##
# This method can be called with a range or an offset and length
#
# :call-seq:
#   my_method(Range)
#   my_method(offset, length)

def my_method(*args)
end

The parser extracts yield expressions from method bodies to gather the yielded argument names. If your method manually calls a block instead of yielding or you want to override the discovered argument names use the :yields: directive:

##
# My method is awesome

def my_method(&block) # :yields: happy, times
  block.call 1, 2
end

Metaprogrammed Methods

To pick up a metaprogrammed method, the parser looks for a comment starting with ‘##’ before an identifier:

##
# This is a meta-programmed method!

add_my_method :meta_method, :arg1, :arg2

The parser looks at the token after the identifier to determine the name, in this example, :meta_method. If a name cannot be found, a warning is printed and ‘unknown is used.

You can force the name of a method using the :method: directive:

##
# :method: some_method!

By default, meta-methods are instance methods. To indicate that a method is a singleton method instead use the :singleton-method: directive:

##
# :singleton-method:

You can also use the :singleton-method: directive with a name:

##
# :singleton-method: some_method!

You can define arguments for metaprogrammed methods via either the

Additionally you can mark a method as an attribute by using :attr:, :attr_reader:, :attr_writer: or :attr_accessor:. Just like for :method:, the name is optional.

##
# :attr_reader: my_attr_name

Hidden methods and attributes

You can provide documentation for methods that don’t appear using the :method:, :singleton-method: and :attr: directives:

##
# :attr_writer: ghost_writer
# There is an attribute here, but you can't see it!

##
# :method: ghost_method
# There is a method here, but you can't see it!

##
# this is a comment for a regular method

def regular_method() end

Note that by default, the :method: directive will be ignored if there is a standard rdocable item following it.

For RDoc::Text#to_html