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<head>
<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label dtx</title>
</head><body>
<h3>Documented LaTeX sources (<code>.dtx</code> files)</h3>
<p/>LaTeX2e, and most contributed macro packages, are now written in a
<a href="FAQ-lit.html">literate programming style</a>, with source and
documentation in the
same file. This format, known as ‘doc’, in fact originated before the
days of the LaTeX project as one of the “Mainz” series of
packages. A documented source file conventionally has the suffix
<code>.dtx</code>, and will normally be ‘stripped’ before use with
LaTeX; an installation file (<code>.ins</code>) is normally provided,
to automate this process of removing comments for speed of loading.
To read the comments, you can run LaTeX on the
<code>.dtx</code> file to produce a nicely formatted version of the
documented code. Several
packages can be included in one <code>.dtx</code> file (they’re sorted
out by the <code>.ins</code> file), with conditional
sections, and there are facilities for indexes of macros, etc.
<p/>Anyone can write <code>.dtx</code> files; the format is explained in
<a href="FAQ-books.html">The LaTeX Companion</a>, and a tutorial is available
from CTAN (which comes with skeleton <code>.dtx</code> and
<code>.ins</code> files).
<p/>Composition of <code>.dtx</code> files is supported in <i>emacs</i> by
<a href="FAQ-editors.html">AUC-TeX</a>.
<p/>Another useful way of generating <code>.dtx</code> files is to write the
documentation and the code separately, and then to combine them using
the <i>makedtx</i> system. This technique has particular value in
that the documentation file can be used separately to generate
HTML output; it is often quite difficult to make
<a href="FAQ-LaTeX2HTML.html">LaTeX to HTML conversion</a> tools deal
with <code>.dtx</code> files, since they use an unusual class file.
<p/>The <code>.dtx</code> files are not used by LaTeX after they have been
processed to produce <code>.sty</code> or <code>.cls</code> (or whatever)
files. They need not be kept with the working system; however, for
many packages the <code>.dtx</code> file is the primary source of
documentation, so you may want to keep <code>.dtx</code> files elsewhere.
<p/>An interesting sideline to the story of <code>.dtx</code> files is the
<i>docmfp</i> package, which extends the model of the <i>doc</i>
package to
<a href="FAQ-MF.html">Metafont</a> and <a href="FAQ-MP.html">MetaPost</a>,
thus permitting documented distribution of bundles containing code for
Metafont and MetaPost together with related LaTeX code.
<dl>
<dt><tt><i>clsguide.pdf</i></tt><dd><a href="ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/doc/clsguide.pdf">macros/latex/doc/clsguide.pdf</a>
<dt><tt><i>docmfp.sty</i></tt><dd><a href="ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/docmfp.zip">macros/latex/contrib/docmfp</a> (<a href="ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/docmfp.tar.gz">gzipped tar</a>, <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/docmfp/">browse</a>)
<dt><tt><i>docstrip.tex</i></tt><dd>Part of the LaTeX distribution
<dt><tt><i>DTX tutorial</i></tt><dd><a href="ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/dtxtut.zip">info/dtxtut</a> (<a href="ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/dtxtut.tar.gz">gzipped tar</a>, <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/info/dtxtut/">browse</a>)
<dt><tt><i>makedtx</i></tt><dd><a href="ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive/support/makedtx.zip">support/makedtx</a> (<a href="ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive/support/makedtx.tar.gz">gzipped tar</a>, <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/support/makedtx/">browse</a>)
</dl>
<p/><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=dtx">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=dtx</a>
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