adding more documentation

1 files changed, 64 insertions, 6 deletions

diff --git a/lib/psych/handler.rb b/lib/psych/handler.rb
index f67a554..2364782 100644
--- a/lib/psych/handler.rb
+++ b/lib/psych/handler.rb
@@ -1,25 +1,83 @@
 module Psych
   ###
-  # Default event handlers used in conjunction with Psych::Parser
+  # Psych::Handler is an abstract base class that defines the events used
+  # when dealing with Psych::Parser.  Clients who want to use Psych::Parser
+  # should implement a class that inherits from Psych::Handler and define
+  # events that they can handle.
+  #
+  # Psych::Handler defines all events that Psych::Parser can possibly send to
+  # event handlers.
+  #
+  # See Psych::Parser for more details
   class Handler
     ###
-    # Called with +encoding+ when the YAML stream starts.
+    # Called with +encoding+ when the YAML stream starts.  This method is
+    # called once per stream.  A stream may contain multiple documents.
+    #
+    # See the constants in Psych::Parser for the possible values of +encoding+.
     def start_stream encoding
     end
 
     ###
     # Called when the document starts with the declared +version+,
-    # +tag_directives+, if the document is +implicit+
+    # +tag_directives+, if the document is +implicit+.
+    #
+    # +version+ will be an array of integers indicating the YAML version being
+    # dealt with, +tag_directives+ is a list of tuples indicating the prefix
+    # and suffix of each tag, and +implicit+ is a boolean indicating whether
+    # the document is started implicitly.
+    #
+    # === Example
+    #
+    # Given the following YAML:
+    #
+    #   %YAML 1.1
+    #   %TAG ! tag:tenderlovemaking.com,2009:
+    #   --- !squee
+    #
+    # The parameters for start_document must be this:
+    #
+    #   version         # => [1, 1]
+    #   tag_directives  # => [["!", "tag:tenderlovemaking.com,2009:"]]
+    #   implicit        # => false
     def start_document version, tag_directives, implicit
     end
 
     ###
-    # Called with the document ends.
-    def end_document implicit = true
+    # Called with the document ends.  +implicit+ is a boolean value indicating
+    # whether or not the document has an implicit ending.
+    #
+    # === Example
+    #
+    # Given the following YAML:
+    #
+    #   ---
+    #     hello world
+    #
+    # +implicit+ will be true.  Given this YAML:
+    #
+    #   ---
+    #     hello world
+    #   ...
+    #
+    # +implicit+ will be false.
+    def end_document implicit
     end
 
     ###
-    # Called when an alias is found to +anchor+
+    # Called when an alias is found to +anchor+.  +anchor+ will be the name
+    # of the anchor found.
+    #
+    # === Example
+    #
+    # Here we have an example of an array that references itself in YAML:
+    #
+    #   --- &ponies
+    #   - first element
+    #   - *ponies
+    #
+    # &ponies is the achor, *ponies is the alias.  In this case, alias is
+    # called with "ponies".
     def alias anchor
     end