slippery chicken documentation - source code documentation

slippery chicken is documented in the form of a manual (the main source of discursive information and examples), source code documentation (for details on individual methods, classes, and functions), and papers.

## Source code documentation

slippery chicken's source code is documented inline. The explanatory comments and examples are extracted automatically by robodoc to produce webpages and a PDF. These form the main source of detailed information on the project's methods, classes, and functions. The PDF is just a collation of the same information available on the webpages. Note that not every method or function is documented in this manner, rather, only those which are deemed part of the public interface (i.e. useful to the majority of slippery chicken users).

Browse the source code documentation.

Download a single PDF of the source code documentation.

### Accessing documentation in Emacs

As all of the source code documentation extracted by robodoc is in the .lsp files in the `src` directory of slippery chicken, to access documentation for a particular method or function is very easy in the Emacs text editor. If you place the cursor over the function/method name and type alt-. (hold the alt key and type a full-stop/period) the minibuffer will prompt you to jump to a tag, the default for which will be the function/method name the cursor is over. Just hit return and you'll be taken to the function/method definition in the source code, where you should also find extensive documentation and examples.

This presupposes however that you've generated a TAGS file for the source code and so can load this when Emacs prompts you for it. If you don't find TAGS in the slippery chicken source code folder, you can generate it by typing the following in your terminal/shell/dos prompt (once you've `cd`'d to the `src` directory): `etags *.lsp`. More on tags and Emacs can be found at emacswiki.org.