conversions were done using https://github.com/pennae/nix-doc-munge
using (probably) rev f34e145 running
nix-doc-munge nixos/**/*.nix
nix-doc-munge --import nixos/**/*.nix
the tool ensures that only changes that could affect the generated
manual *but don't* are committed, other changes require manual review
and are discarded.
a lot of markdown syntax has already snuck into option docs, many of it
predating the intent to migrate to markdown. we don't convert all of it
here, just that which is accompanied by docbook tags as well. the rest
can be converted by simply adding the mdDoc marker.
make (almost) all links appear on only a single line, with no
unnecessary whitespace, using double quotes for attributes. this lets us
automatically convert them to markdown easily.
the few remaining links are extremely long link in a gnome module, we'll
come back to those at a later date.
the conversion procedure is simple:
- find all things that look like options, ie calls to either `mkOption`
or `lib.mkOption` that take an attrset. remember the attrset as the
option
- for all options, find a `description` attribute who's value is not a
call to `mdDoc` or `lib.mdDoc`
- textually convert the entire value of the attribute to MD with a few
simple regexes (the set from mdize-module.sh)
- if the change produced a change in the manual output, discard
- if the change kept the manual unchanged, add some text to the
description to make sure we've actually found an option. if the
manual changes this time, keep the converted description
this procedure converts 80% of nixos options to markdown. around 2000
options remain to be inspected, but most of those fail the "does not
change the manual output check": currently the MD conversion process
does not faithfully convert docbook tags like <code> and <package>, so
any option using such tags will not be converted at all.
Does not set MemoryDenyWriteExecute as OpenJDK need to mark memory page as
executable. Does not set ProcSubset as /proc/cpuinfo and /proc/meminfo
are needed.
some options have default that are best described in prose, such as
defaults that depend on the system stateVersion, defaults that are
derivations specific to the surrounding context, or those where the
expression is much longer and harder to understand than a simple text
snippet.
escape interpolations in descriptions where possible, replace them with
sufficiently descriptive text elsewhere. also expand cfg.* paths in
descriptions.
