Report on module variables would be nice

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi Simon,

This is a request for a feature, which I think would be useful.

Bpipe supports making a shared file containing re-usable modules. That and the 
ability to pass a variable to a module via using() is very powerful. The 
reporting feature (bpipe -r) is also very useful.

However, at the moment, any report generated does not mention any module 
variable used. For example, in the example below, it would be nice to have the 
report state that the name used was John:

  hello = {
     doc title: "Greet a person",
         desc:  """Display a hello message on screen. Parameters:
                      'name', name of person to be greeted""",
         constraints: "",
         author: ""

     exec """
        echo "Hello $name"
     """
  }

  Bpipe.run {
     hello.using(name:"John")
  }

A related issue is that there is no builtin way to document what parameters a 
module takes. Maybe it would be nice to have an additional "doc inputs", "doc 
outputs" and "doc variables" field to document comprehensively what a modules 
does and how to use it.

Cheers,

Florent

Original issue reported on code.google.com by florent....@gmail.com on 17 Mar 2014 at 9:09