Type of the first argument of LoadPackage is not specified

[olexandr-konovalov]

The documentation says that it

loads the GAP package with name `name`. 

I think it should be formulated as

loads the GAP package with name given by the string `name`".

(just today I referred to the manual a novice user who was trying to load package with LoadPackage(sglppow) without quotes around the package name, and then we figured out that this may not be so obvious...)

This is an easy task for anyone who'd like to try to practice to work with git, pull requests, GAP documentation etc., so I am marking it as "help wanted" to advertise as such.

[frankluebeck]

On Tue, Mar 03, 2015 at 12:38:57PM -0800, Alexander Konovalov wrote:

The documentation says that it

loads the GAP package with name `name`. 

I think it should be formulated as

loads the GAP package with name given by the string `name`".

(just today I referred to the manual a novice user who was trying
to load package with LoadPackage(sglppow) without quotes around
the package name, and then we figured out that this may not be so
obvious...)

In my opinion making the sentence more complicated does not help anyone.
I suggest the following:

Leave the first cited sentence as it is and add a short example after it.
This should just show the loading of a package, without the rarely used
fancy optional arguments. And maybe a second example with an abbreviated
package name.

All the other fairly technical documentation (which must be there) can
follow after the example, it is not needed by most GAP users.

[olexandr-konovalov]

@frankluebeck : thanks, I agree that example would be even better!

[sr-murthy]

I can do this. Is this required or finished?

[olexandr-konovalov]

@sr-murthy: Thanks - it's just waiting here for some one to have a look, so please go ahead if you'd like to. Adding example in GAPDoc, please use Log element instead of Example to exclude it from automated tests of manual examples.

[sr-murthy]

OK, which specific file needs to be changed, I am assuming this is somewhere in gap/doc.

[olexandr-konovalov]

The starting point is gap/doc, indeed. It has subdirectories tut, ref and changes for respective manuals. This piece is from ref from the chapter on GAP packages which is ref/gappkg.xml. When you will find a place of this section there, you will see the line

<#Include Label="LoadPackage">

which includes documentation from the source code. This means that somewhere in the lib directory there should be a file with the line

<#GAPDoc Label="LoadPackage">

containing the documentation. Easy to find out that this is lib/package.gd which should be changed.

[sr-murthy]

Am a bit busy with some projects right now, will get this done soon.

[sr-murthy]

Am working on this right now, and should have it done shortly.

[olexandr-konovalov]

Following the questions coming from PR #155, I've created a Wiki page "Building main GAP manuals", see https://github.com/gap-system/gap/wiki/Building-main-GAP-manuals. Hope this will be useful.

[olexandr-konovalov]

This issue is closed by PR #155.