This documents requirements and procedures to set up a local build.
In addition, this record of the build process should be kept in sync with any changes made to the github actions build.
Because there are several different toolchains that can be used for publishing content from AsciiDoc, you might come across different sources of information on the Web.
The Asciidoctor toolchains include ones that use:
- python (old)
- Ruby (established)
- NPM (new)
We are using the Ruby toolchain because it supports building the customizable, full-featured pdf required for RISC-V specifications.
To support building WaveDrom diagrams directly from scripts contained in blocks in the AsciiDoc source files, we use NPM to install the wavedrom-cli, even though we are using the Ruby toolchain.
NOTE: Even though NPM is required for the Wavedrom diagrams to work properly, we are not using the Asciidoctor NPM toolchain.
Install Ruby using RVM, and then install the Asciidoctor gem.
RVM is a Ruby installation and version manager. RVM works by installing Ruby inside your home directory and manages the environment variables to allow you to switch between the system-wide Ruby and any Ruby installed using RVM.
ALERT: RVM is essential for creating pdfs because, paradoxically, the pdf build works best using Ruby version 2.5.x rather than more recent version.
- Install the RVM (https://rvm.io/rvm/install):
\curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --ruby
RVM will download and build the Ruby language and RubyGems along with several essential gems and configure your PATH environment variable.
After the install is finished, open a new Terminal window and remove your local Gem configuration, if you have one (or move it out of the way):
rm -f HOME/.gemrc
For the purpose of the pdf build, install Ruby version 2.5.x:
rvm install ruby-2.5
When using RVM, you can switch between the system-wide Ruby and RVM-managed Ruby using these two commands:
- Switch to system-wide Ruby:
rvm use system
- Switch to RVM-managed version 2.5.9 for use in building pdf:
rvm use 2.5.9
ALERT: Ensure that you are using the same Ruby version for all Ruby gems that you install for the Asciidoctor toolchain.
NOTE: Users of Windows 10 are reporting problems with RVM. We plan to test the use of Cygwin as a workaround. Please note that if you don't need asciidoctor-mathematical for rendering of mathematical expressions, you can make use of Ruby 2.7.2.
- For Windows, use: http://rubyinstaller.org/
NOTE: During the Windows install, click in the installer to:
- associate the .rvm with the current version
- add paths
- add tdtk
ALERT: Ensure that you are using the same Ruby version for all gems that you install for the Asciidoctor toolchain.
- Install Asciidoctor:
gem install asciidoctor
- Verify Asciidoctor is installed:
asciidoctor --version
If you see the Asciidoctor version information printed in the terminal, then you’re already able to build html from an .adoc file using:
asciidoctor filename.adoc
- Navigate to the following url:
https://rubygems.org/gems/asciidoctor/
-
Scroll down to the latest version and click the download button.
-
In Powershell, use the following command to install the Asciidoctor gem:
gem install asciidoctor <path-to-downloaded-gem>
Install the following:
- asciidoctor-pdf gem, which is needed for pdf rendering.
- asciidoctor-bibtex gem, which is needed for auto-creation of a bibliography from citations.
gem install asciidoctor-pdf
gem install asciidoctor-bibtex
Information on the markup required for use of diagramming, mathemtical notation, and creating a bibliography with references to it, see the example.pdf
in this repo.
Install syntax highlighting gems as follows (for Windows, append the string --source http://rubygems.org
to each command):
gem install coderay
gem install rouge
gem install pygments.rb
For MacOS, use brew to install nvm and create an nvm directory:
brew install nvm
mkdir ~/.nvm
open either ~/.bash_profile or ~/.zshrc (for macOS Catalina or later):
vim ~./bash.profile
Add the following lines to the profile:
export NVM_DIR=~/.nvm
source $(brew --prefix nvm)/nvm.sh
Load the profile:
source ~/.zshrc
Install the most recent node, node 15, and make node 15 the version you use:
nvm install node
nvm install 15
nvm use 15
And finally, on node 15, install wavedrom-cli:
npm install -g wavedrom-cli
Check that wavedrom-cli is in the path (this should display the help):
wavedrom-cli
NOTE: It appears that Oracle JDK is also required for WaveDrom diagrams to work. You can find a link to the JDK below.
For Windows:
WARNING: We can guess that node 15 is required for Windows.
Download the installer from https://nodejs.org/en/ and install node, then use npm to install wavedrom-cli:
npm install -g wavedrom-cli
Whether you are using Windows of MacOS, check that wavedrom-cli is in the path (this should display the help):
wavedrom-cli
WARNING: For the MacOS, if you upgrade from a prior version to Big Sur, you must reinstall first the NPM and then the NPM version of the wavedrom-cli.
To support graphviz on the Mac, use brew
brew install graphviz
For WIndows, see https://graphviz.org/download/
Support for mathematical notation is not required for each and every specification, and installing both the prerequisites and the gem itself have been tricky on the Mac.
brew install pango gdk-pixbuf cairo cmake
ALERT: You can find various discussions about problems with getting asciidoctor-mathematical to install properly on the MacOS, and the solutions vary. It appears that after more than one MacOS update, the file permissions can cause problems. It appears that cleaning up prior versions of Ruby (while maintaining the current version installed with the Xcode developer tools), and completely removing and reinstalling RVM can resolve the problem.
Now that the prerequisites are installed, install the two additional gems:
gem install asciidoctor-diagram
gem install asciidoctor-mathematical
The asciidoctor-bibtex
gem enables the use of bibtex directly from AsciiDoc for auto-generation of a bibliography from citations within the AsciiDoc text. It also allows for the use of the existing riscv-spec.bib
file that was created for the LaTeX build.
To enable the use of asciidoctor-bibtex
, install the prerequisites and the asciidoctor-bibtex
gem:
gem install ruby-dev
gem install citeproc-ruby
gem install csl-styles
gem install asciidoctor-bibtex
You can then add a bibliography to your appendices and use bibtex conventions to add citations into your AsciiDoc text files.
Details of how to work with bibtex and the RISC-V bibliogrpahy are in the example.pdf file.
Attributes in the book headers for RISC-V AsciiDoc content control aspects of the pdf build. Together with the risc-v_spec-pdf.yml
file, they enable, among other things, numbered headings, a TOC, running headers and footers, footnotes at chapter ends, custom fonts, admonitions, an index, and an optional colophon.
In addition, properties in the book header within this repo point to the images
directory and also the resources/riscv-spec.bib
file that contains the RISC-V bibtex
entries for use in creating a bibliography as one of the appendices.
For shorter documents, you have the option of using a report header, however, we have not yet provided branding for it.
NOTE: The headers are already in the template files. The only changes you normally need to make are to add chapter-sized sections in using the syntax include::filename.adoc[]
in the order by which you want them to appear.
- In your text editor, create a new file.
- Assign a name and save with the .adoc extension.
- In the first line, add
[file_name]
(using a meaningful string for the filename) and in the second line, use a double "==" to indicate a topic heading, add some content, and save the file with an.adoc
file extension. - In the header file, add
include::file_name.adoc
and save it.
NOTE: Blank lines are not allowed in between the include::file_name.adoc
files.
Building in HTML is a good way to check that your content under development builds properly.
As soon as you have installed Asciidoctor, you can build HTML content from any .adoc
file on your own machine--simply CD into the directory that contains your .adoc
files and run the following:
asciidoctor any_file_name.adoc
This generates a file named any_file_name.html
.
For pdf output, cd into this cloned directory and use this command:
asciidoctor-pdf -r asciidoctor-mathematical -a mathematical-format=svg -r asciidoctor-bibtex -r asciidoctor-diagram book_header.adoc -a pdf-style=resources/themes/riscv-pdf.yml -a pdf-fontsdir=resources/fonts/
This generates a file named book_header.pdf
that makes use of the graphics, styles, and fonts that is identical to example.pdf.
ALERT: When copying/pasting commands for the CLI on the Windows OS, check that no substitutions are being made. We have seen the '=' get replaced with a '#', causing an error message about fonts.
For your own content, change the name of the header file to a meaningful file name, and change the include::filename.adoc
as needed.
- AsciiDoc writers' guide: https://asciidoctor.org/docs/asciidoc-writers-guide/
- AsciiDoc quick reference: http://asciidoctor.org/docs/asciidoc-syntax-quick-reference/
- Asciidoctor user manual: http://asciidoctor.org/docs/user-manual/
Almost all conversions require some cleanup.
The most reliable converter from LaTeX to AsciiDoc that I have found is Pandoc:
https://pandoc.org/getting-started.html
After installing Pandoc on your machine, you can begin the conversion using the following pattern:
pandoc source_file.tex -s -o destination_file.adoc
After that first step, you must open the file using a text editor with a good AsciiDoc linter and clean it up.
You can find a list of text editors that support AsciiDoc authoring (with linters and/or syntax highlighting) in its documentation at https://docs.asciidoctor.org/asciidoctor/latest/tooling/, and a more comprehensive list at https://github.com/bodiam/awesome-asciidoc.
While Pandoc does a reasonably good job, there are always documentation nits that must be addressed.
The current procedure for changebars is, admittedly, a bit fiddly, but the convenience value of changebars that show up in a pdf can make them worth the effort.
To support changebars, the following has been added to the YAML stylesheet:
role:
Changed:
border:
width: .25
changebar: 1
color: $base_font_color
offset: 2
Note the changebar entry--this is used as a key to key to create the bars.
To support rendering of changebars in your local build, you must modify two files in your local gem:
transform.rb line18 :
'border_changebar' => :border_changebar,
text_background_and_border_renderer.rb line 38:
if (border_width = data[:border_changebar])
border_width = 1
border_color = data[:border_color]
prev_stroke_color = pdf.stroke_color
prev_line_width = pdf.line_width
pdf.stroke_color border_color
pdf.line_width border_width
pdf.stroke_vertical_line fragment.top + border_offset, fragment.top-height, :at => 50 - pdf.bounds.absolute_left
pdf.stroke_color prev_stroke_color
pdf.line_width prev_line_width
elsif (border_width = data[:border_width])
At this point changebars require manual entry and removal. You can find documentation for how to use markup for changebars in the example.pdf.
Technical staff is exploring further automated processing and CI/CD.
You can find information on installing the JDK on a MacOS here: https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/15/install/installation-jdk-macos.html#GUID-F575EB4A-70D3-4AB4-A20E-DBE95171AB5F