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MySQL Guide to MySQL Documentation :: 1 MySQL Documentation Overview :: 1.1 Documentation Repositories and Directory Structure
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1.1. Documentation Repositories and Directory Structure

The best way to understand the MySQL documentation is to download the documentation tree from the Subversion respository. To do this you will need to install Subversion (http://subversion.tigris.org). To just browse the documentation tree for a first impression you can simply go to http://svn.mysql.com/svnpublic/mysqldoc with a web browser.

The MySQL documentation repository is called mysqldoc. The documentation tools are in the mysqldoc-toolset repository, though. To work with MySQL documentation (rather than just viewing it), you need the documentation tools, too. Once Subversion has been installed, you must check out the repositories: 

shell> svn checkout http://svn.mysql.com/svnpublic/mysqldoc
shell> svn checkout http://svn.mysql.com/svnpublic/mysqldoc-toolset

The repositories contain a combination of the actual documentation source and the components and systems required to build the documentation, including tools for related tasks such as validating the XML or counting words.

Table 1.1. Core Support Directories in mysqldoc-toolset

Directory Description
dicts Dictionaries for the spell checker
dtd.d The DocBook DTDs used to verify the structure of the DocBook XML
make.d Makefile rules used to create specific targets and output formats in the documentation (examples: validation, HTML output)
tools A series of scripts and other tools used to help build the documentation, including tools for related tasks such as validating
xsl.d The standard DocBook XSL style sheets and the custom extensions and improvements used specifically for the MySQL documentation. Note that we've modified neither the DocBook DTD nor the DocBook XSL style sheets, which enables us to update DocBook regularly.

The remaining directories hold the documentation itself, either in DocBook XML format or in a format that can be built and translated into DocBook XML for publishing. These directories also contain any additional files required for the document, such as the entity definitions (including some common files), and the graphics files used for illustrations and screenshots.

Table 1.2. Documentation Directories in mysqldoc

Directory Description
administrator Files specific to the MySQL Administrator manual
arbitrary Directory which holds specifications for arbitrary documentation
common Files common to all documents
dynamic-docs The source material for dynamically generated information, including the options/variables and operators/function definitions. These files are parsed and converted into DocBook XML for incorporation into different parts of the manual.
falcon Falcon manual
guibook The GUI book which bonds together the content from all the GUI tool manuals into a single book
gui-common Files common to all of the GUI tool documentation
internals MySQL internals manual
migration-toolkit Migration Toolkit GUI tool manual
mysqldoc-guide This guide
mysqlqb Specially marked-up version of MySQL Manual chapters for MySQL Query Browser
mysqltest Documentation for the mysqltest framework
ndbapi Cluster/NDB API documentation
proto-doc A suite of basic document templates used to create chapters, sections and entire books
query-browser MySQL Query Browser manual
quick-guides Quick references for inclusion in the MySQL Manual
refman-#.# DocBook XML source for documentation specific to different major versions of MySQL. The documentation here is augmented by the contents of refman-common and other files
refman-common Documentation common to all the reference manuals. This directory contains elements such as the documentation for MySQL Connectors, graphics common to all versions, and chapters and appendices that appear in all versions of the MySQL Reference Manual
sample-data Sample databases used in various parts of the documentation
workbench MySQL Workbench GUI manual

Additionally, there are a few directories for translation purposes. These can be considered experimental at this point, and might or might not be moved to language-specific repositories soon.