Using `docstrip' and `doc'

If you are going to write a large class or package for L^ATEX then you should consider using the doc software which comes with L^ATEX. L^ATEX classes and packages written using this can be processed in two ways: they can be run through L^ATEX, to produce documentation; and they can be processed with docstrip, to produce the .cls or .sty file. The doc software can automatically generate indexes of definitions, indexes of command use, and change-log lists. It is very useful for maintaining and documenting large TEX sources. The documented sources of the L^ATEX kernel itself, and of the standard classes, etc, are doc documents; they are in the .dtx files in the distribution. You can, in fact, typeset the source code of the kernel as one long document, complete with index, by running L^ATEX on source2e.tex. For more information on doc and docstrip, consult the files docstrip.dtx, doc.dtx, and The LaTeX Companion. For examples of its use, look at the .dtx files.