On this page:
pre-content?
pre-flow?
pre-part?
decode
decode-part
decode-flow
decode-compound-paragraph
decode-paragraph
decode-content
decode-elements
decode-string
whitespace?
title-decl
part-start
part-index-decl
part-collect-decl
part-tag-decl
splice
clean-up-index-string

7.5 Decoding Text

The scribble/decode library helps you write document content in a natural way—more like plain text, except for @ escapes. Roughly, it processes a stream of strings to produces instances of the scribble/struct datatypes (see Compatibility Structures And Processing).

At the flow level, decoding recognizes a blank line as a paragraph separator. Blocks and paragraphs without blank lines in between are collected into a compound paragraph.

At the content level, decoding makes just a few special text conversions:

Some functions decode a sequence of pre-flow or pre-content arguments using decode-flow or decode-content, respectively. For example, the bold function accepts any number of pre-content arguments, so that in

  @bold{``apple''}

the ``apple'' argument is decoded to use fancy quotes, and then it is bolded.

(pre-content? v)  boolean?
  v : any/c
Returns #t if v is a pre-content value: a string or other non-list content, or a splice containing a list of pre-content values; otherwise returns #f.

Pre-content is decoded into content by functions like decode-content and decode-paragraph.

(pre-flow? v)  boolean?
  v : any/c
Returns #t if v is a pre-flow value: a string or other non-list content, a block, #<void>, or a splice containing a list of pre-flow values; otherwise returns #f.

Pre-flow is decoded into a flow (i.e., a list of blocks) by functions like decode-flow.

(pre-part? v)  boolean?
  v : any/c
Returns #t if v is a pre-part value: a string or other non-list content, a block, a part, a title-decl, a part-start, a part-index-decl, a part-collect-decl, a part-tag-decl, #<void>, or a splice containing a list of pre-part values; otherwise returns #f.

A pre-part sequence is decoded into a part by functions like decode and decode-part.

(decode lst)  part?
  lst : (listof pre-part?)
Decodes a document, producing a part. In lst, instances of splice are inlined into the list. An instance of title-decl supplies the title for the part, plus tag, style and version information. Instances of part-index-decl (that precede any sub-part) add index entries that point to the section. Instances of part-collect-decl add elements to the part that are used only during the collect pass. Instances of part-tag-decl add hyperlink tags to the section title. Instances of part-start at level 0 trigger sub-part parsing. Instances of section trigger are used as-is as subsections, and instances of paragraph and other flow-element datatypes are used as-is in the enclosing flow.

(decode-part lst tags title depth)  part?
  lst : (listof pre-part?)
  tags : (listof string?)
  title : (or/c #f list?)
  depth : exact-nonnegative-integer?
Like decode, but given a list of tag string for the part, a title (if #f, then a title-decl instance is used if found), and a depth for part-starts to trigger sub-part parsing.

(decode-flow lst)  flow?
  lst : (listof pre-flow?)
Decodes a flow. A sequence of two or more newlines separated only by whitespace counts is parsed as a paragraph separator. In lst, instances of splice are inlined into the list. Instances of paragraph and other flow-element datatypes are used as-is in the enclosing flow.

Decodes a compound paragraph. If the compound paragraph contains a single block, the block is returned without a compound-paragraph wrapper.

(decode-paragraph lst)  paragraph?
  lst : (listof pre-content?)
Decodes a paragraph.

(decode-content lst)  list?
  lst : (listof pre-content?)
Decodes content.

(decode-elements lst)  list?
  lst : (listof pre-content?)
An alias for decode-content.

(decode-string s)  (listof content?)
  s : string?
Decodes a single string to produce content.

(whitespace? s)  boolean?
  s : string?
Returns #t if s contains only whitespace, #f otherwise.

(struct title-decl (tag-prefix tags version style content)
  #:extra-constructor-name make-title-decl)
  tag-prefix : (or/c #f string?)
  tags : (listof string?)
  version : (or/c string? #f)
  style : any/c
  content : content?
See decode and decode-part. The tag-prefix and style fields are propagated to the resulting part.

(struct part-start (depth tag-prefix tags style title)
  #:extra-constructor-name make-part-start)
  depth : integer?
  tag-prefix : (or/c #f string?)
  tags : (listof string?)
  style : any/c
  title : content?
Like title-decl, but for a sub-part. See decode and decode-part.

(struct part-index-decl (plain-seq entry-seq)
  #:extra-constructor-name make-part-index-decl)
  plain-seq : (listof string?)
  entry-seq : list?
See decode. The two fields are as for index-element.

(struct part-collect-decl (element)
  #:extra-constructor-name make-part-collect-decl)
  element : element?
See decode.

(struct part-tag-decl (tag)
  #:extra-constructor-name make-part-tag-decl)
  tag : tag?
See decode.

(struct splice (run)
  #:extra-constructor-name make-splice)
  run : list?

(clean-up-index-string str)  string?
  str : string?
Trims leading and trailing whitespace, and converts non-empty sequences of whitespace to a single space character.