The script reads in plain text files, and then indexes sections or chapters or questions in that file and puts that index at the top of an HTML file (like a table of contents) which then link down into the file. Furthermore, it will do this for a number of files and create a global index/table of contents. This is difficult for me to explain, so it's better to just see some examples, but keep in mind that this can be used for more general purpose tasks than just FAQ building.
As a partial example, Section 2 of the DaveFAQ is generated from a simple text file. The configuration file is a little more complicated, but keep in mind that it needs to hold all the extra header and footer HTML.
Chapter One - Monty's Questions q: What is your quest? I seek the holy grail q: What is your favorite color? BlueWe create a few files like this, let's name them txt_1, txt_2, etc..
Some_String = blah Multiline_String = "this is many lines" Another_Quoting = 'or use halfquotes if you need to include "doublequotes" in your string' Another_Quoting = 'but don't worry, 'quotes' only end a string at the end of a line.'We can also use some tricks in our conf file to save typing:
# shell style comments are okay Name = David Ljung Madison Hello = Hi, my name is conf(Name) # Replaces with configuration value 'Name' # And no, order is not important. Bad_Idea = include_file(/etc/passwd) # Can include files # Header is special, it can do a few things: Header = SPACE_OUT(Hi there) # Spaces out text using Header = Section $NUMBER # Replaced with a string version of # the section number ("one","two",..) Header = Topic $TOPIC # Replaced with the topicAll of this goes in a file called conf. You need to define the following:
There's one last trick, since the Short_Header and Long_Header are
likely to be the same except for their linking to each other, you
can refer to the other by name with $OTHER and by link with $OTHER_HTML.
In other words, you can do something like this:
Short_Header = " Blah blah blah.. <a href=$OTHER_HTML>$OTHER Index</a> " Long_Header = conf(Short_Header)It might help to snag the conf file from DaveFAQ and using it as a starting point.