Export for Documentation

[phillip-haydon]

I'm currently manually creating the documentation to put on my site for the CLI usage. Which gave me a thought...

Would it be possible to do some sort of export of the the documentation.

If I have branch commands I have to go into each command and call -h to get the output for that command, then I use that to build the documentation on the site.

I have no idea how you would solve it nicely, maybe a nuget tool which analysis it and generates a .md file.

Feel free to close this is my idea is stupid...

[patriksvensson]

A little hidden gem of Spectre.Console.Cli is that you can export XML structure with a hidden command.
Try passing cli xmldoc to your application and it should give you the XML structure:

You can use this XML to generate documentation for your app.

[phillip-haydon]

Other than lacking Description and Examples, this is awesome!

explain is really nice for being able to view the branches and check that descriptions and examples have been written.

[patriksvensson]

We could add description and examples to the xmldoc output.

[phillip-haydon]

I don't mind trying to do a PR next week if you can point me in the right direction.

[patriksvensson]

@phillip-haydon The command you would want to extend is the XmlDocCommand which can be found here: https://github.com/spectreconsole/spectre.console/blob/main/src/Spectre.Console.Cli/Internal/Commands/XmlDocCommand.cs

[FrankRay78]

I don't mind trying to do a PR next week if you can point me in the right direction.

Still interested in preparing a PR for this @phillip-haydon? If so, I can make myself available to review with a view to merging.

[phillip-haydon]

Hey, would still love this, no time at the moment :(.