Hi,
I think it a good idea to store that kind of information into a database. I have a suggestion if you are going that way.
As writing documentation for software is not a pleasure so developer often abandon it. Another problem is to keep documentation consistent to the software implementation. So I made an approach that really works fine for me and could be useful for others.
My process of generating documentation for software projects:
1. Add doxygen documentation within your source code. The function name is used as ID for documentation.
2. Put additional documentation in an own file (e.g. services.tex). Add to a corresponding ID an additional description.
Now my perl script reads the doxygen commands from the source code and adds the description of the documentation file (services.tex) and generates a tex file. This file is compiled and I get a final version of the document with bookmarks, references, index, hyperlinks on the fly. Now I save a lot of work, because if a function is added I only have to add an description for the new ID in the services.tex and the sources are clean without to much documentation. Further the script checks for example the parameters of function and their documentation.
The advantage of this method is, that I have a html docu made with doxygen and a pdf version that looks nice and has all navigation features. Futher I can generate different types of documentation (internal, external, all etc.).
No my idea:
Keep a minimum of documentation within the source
Add a description for a function, variable etc. in your database
Start the generation of documentation.
The stylesheet for formating the output could be some kind of xml syntax. If that sounds interesting to you, please let me know.
Bye,
Mario