cnote

cnote is a useful tool that can help you manage your C codes.

Features

• clean: Recursively removes // comments and applies clang-format to C source files.
• doc: Generates a multi-page, navigable Markdown documentation site from /** @brief ... */ style comments in source files.
• license: Applies or updates a license header to all source files, skipping files that already have it.

Requirements

Build-Time Dependencies

To build cnote from source, you will need:

• clang (fluf depends on some features that only clang support)
• make
• git (to clone the repository and its submodules)

Run-Time Dependencies

To use cnote, you must have the following tools installed and available in your system's PATH:

• clang-format: Required by the clean command.

NOTE: most of the times, if you installed clang, you will get clang-format on your system

Building from Source

cnote uses a git submodule for its core library (fluf).

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/Karesis/cnote.git
   cd cnote

2. Initialize and update the submodule:

   git submodule update --init --recursive

3. Build the project:

   make

4. Install the binary (optional): This will install cnote to /usr/local/bin (or a custom PREFIX).

   sudo make install

   To uninstall:

   sudo make uninstall

   To update:

   # update files
   make update
   
   # then install
   sudo make install

Usage

cnote is a command-line tool. You can get help at any time:

$ cnote --help
Usage: cnote <command> [options] [targets...]

Commands:
  clean [opts] <paths...>    Removes '//' comments and runs clang-format.
  doc <src_dir> <out_dir>     Generates markdown documentation (mdBook compatible).
  license [opts] <paths...>   Applies or maintains a license header.

General Options:
  -h, --help                 Show this help message.

'clean' Options:
  -e, --exclude <path>       Exclude a file/directory.
  -s, --style <file>         Path to .clang-format file to use.

'license' Options:
  -e, --exclude <path>       Exclude a file/directory.
  -f, --file <license_file>  (Required) Path to the license text file.

Examples

clean

Clean all .c and .h files in the src and include directories, excluding the vendor directory:

cnote clean -e vendor/ src/ include/

Use a specific .clang-format file:

cnote clean -s ./.clang-format src/

doc

Generate documentation from all sources in src/ and include/ and write the site to the docs/ directory:

# cnote doc <source-directory> <output-directory>
cnote doc include docs/reference

After running, this will create a structure like this:

docs/
└──reference/
    ├── SUMMARY.md       (The main table of contents)
    └── api/
        ├── include_clean_h.md
        ├── include_doc_h.md
        ├── src_main_c.md
        └── ...etc

license

Apply the license header from LICENSE_HEADER to all files in src/ and include/:

cnote license -f LICENSE_HEADER src/ include/

API Documentation

For information on the internal C API (e.g., for contributing to cnote), see the generated api entry API Entry.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache-2.0 License. See the LICENSE file for details.