Anyone doing C++ Programmer's doc?

["Hallnan, Barbara (CICG Development)" <bhallnan -at- EXCHANGE -dot- ML -dot- COM>]

Hi folks,

I've written doc for C APIs before, but this is my first C++ doc. It's a new
job, and the first job is a small API that is the beginning of a whole new
library (that, just for fun, will wrap a lot of stuff from the old library).


I've reviewed the code and generated a class hierarchy diagram. The boss
wants the first document to be something that will get folks started using
the API quickly. So I thought I would first do a "Getting Started Using the
AlphaCurve API" guide. Kind of a cross between a getting started and user's
guide. This guide would explain the logic behind the class design, diagram
the functional overview, and then doc the classes/methods you'd use to write
a program based on sample code. Does this sound like a good approach?

The second document would be a Programmer's Reference Guide, and this guide
would document all the classes/methods. The question here is, when you have
abstract classes on the top level that contain a full set of functions and
then subclasses that contain a partial set of the parent lass functions and
one or two unique-to-that-class functions, how do you organize the document?
Anyone have any examples of this type of code documented somewhere that I
could look at for structure ideas? I thought I'd have a chapter on classes,
define each classes in detail, and list the functions available for each
class. The next chapter would contain function documentation, alphabetically
organized. The doc for each function would contain cross references to each
class it's found in.

Does this sound OK? Any comments?

Much thanks in advance.

Barbara


Barbara Hallnan
Global Debt Analytics -- Documentation
Merrill Lynch
bhallnan -at- exchange -dot- ml -dot- com


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