Ruby Document format

RD (Ruby Document) is a lightweight markup language for writing Ruby-related documents. It can be embedded in Ruby source code.

RD is a traditional format. In modern Ruby, developers tend to write documents in RDoc instead of RD.

Use

RD was used for many documentation in the Ruby world. The documentation for Ruby itself was originally written in RD. In 2002, the documenation was re-written in RDoc format. The Japanese version of the Ruby Reference Manual is still written in RD.

RD is easy to read in the raw. It is designed to read or write by hand. But, in most cases, end-users read it after it has been converted into man pages or HTML pages.

Pure RD files usually have the extension .rd. RD can be embedded in Ruby code.

Sample RD document

This document is syntactically correct RD, which attempts to follow the major conventions on section naming as well.

Source

HTML result

=begin = NAME RD sample - A sample RD document = SYNOPSIS here.is_a?(Piece::Of::Code) print <<"END" This indented block will not be scanned for formatting codes or directives, and spacing will be preserved. END = DESCRIPTION Here's some normal text. It includes text that is ((*emphasized*)), ((%keyboard%)), (({code}))-formatted, ((|variable part|)), ((:indexed:)), and (('as-is'))((-footnote-)). == An Example List * This is a bulleted list. * Here's another item. * Nested list item. == An ordered List (1) This is the first item (2) second * Nested unordered list. (3) third (1) Nested ordered list (2) its second item =end =begin html <img src="Example.png" align="right" alt="Figure 1." /> <p> Here's some embedded HTML. In this block I can include images, apply <span style="color: green"> styles</span>, or do anything else I can do with HTML. RD processors that aren't outputting HTML will completely ignore it. </p> =end =begin = SEE ALSO ((<RD::RDTree>)), ((<RD::Visitor#visit|RD/Visitor/visit>)), ((<Ruby|URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_%28programming_language%29>)) = COPYRIGHT Copyright 2005 J. Random Hacker <jrh@cpan.org>. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. =end

NAME RD sample - A sample RD document SYNOPSIS here.is_a?(Piece::Of::Code) print <<"END" This indented block will not be scanned for formatting codes or directives, and spacing will be preserved. END DESCRIPTION Here's some normal text. It includes text that is emphasized, keyboard, code-formatted, variable part, indexed, and as-is*1. An Example List This is a bulleted list. Here's another item. Nested list item. An ordered List This is the first item second Nested unordered list. third Nested ordered list its second item Here's some embedded HTML. In this block I can include images, apply styles, or do anything else I can do with HTML. RD processors that aren't outputting HTML will completely ignore it.

See also

• RDoc
• Plain Old Documentation

External links

• RDtool - Framework to translate RD document into other formats.