Existing SUMMARY.md not taken into account

[basbossink]

I'm trying to bootstrap a book project however when running:

mdbook init 

in the root directory of the clone of the above mentioned repository the SUMMARY.md is overwritten and no additional files appart from the empty chapter_1.md are created in the src directory. While the documentation states:

Tip: Generate chapters from SUMMARY.md
When a SUMMARY.md file already exists, the init command will first parse it and generate the missing files according to the paths used in the SUMMARY.md. This allows you to think and create the whole structure of your book and then let mdBook generate it for you.

I've tried this on both Windows and the Windows subsystem for Linux. For the later the issue is also confirmed on a debug build of master with 005dfc55b as the HEAD.

[basbossink]

Trying to move this issue along I was investigating by diving into the source but I don't see where an existing SUMMARY.md file is taken into account. Shouldn't book::init::create_stub_files check to see if an existing SUMMARY.md is present before creating a boilerplate one? A proposed fix is present in #841. Please provide some feedback if this analysis is somehow misguided or incomplete.

[phrohdoh]

I have run into this too.

---

I'm using mdbook and read https://rust-lang-nursery.github.io/mdBook/cli/init.html#tip-generate-chapters-from-summarymd which says:

When a SUMMARY.md file already exists, the init command will first parse it and generate the missing files according to the paths used in the SUMMARY.md. This allows you to think and create the whole structure of your book and then let mdBook generate it for you.

I have the following directory structure:

$ tree
.
└── SUMMARY.md

0 directories, 1 file

As you can see it is empty except for a SUMMARY.md file which has the following content:

- [Terminology](terminology.md)
- [1. Playing](sect-playing/README.md)
    - [1.1 Installing OpenRA](sect-playing/ch01-installing.md)
- [2. Modding](sect-modding/README.md)
    - [2.1. Getting Started](sect-modding/ch01-getting-started/README.md)
        - [2.1.1. Clone The Source Code](sect-modding/ch01-getting-started/cloning.md)
        - [2.1.2. Run The _Red Alert_ Mod](sect-modding/ch01-getting-started/run-ra.md)
    - [2.2. MiniYaml](sect-modding/ch02-miniyaml/README.md)
        - [2.1. Syntax Basics](sect-modding/ch02-miniyaml/syntax.md)
        - [2.2. A Real-World Example](sect-modding/ch02-miniyaml/example.md)
    - [2.?. Map Making](sect-modding/chXX-map-making/README.md)
        - [2.?.1. Map Editor 101](sect-modding/chXX-map-making/editor.md)
        - [2.?.2. Map Scripting 101](sect-modding/chXX-map-making/scripting.md)
    - [2.?. Campaign Creation](sect-modding/chXX-campaigns/README.md)
        - [2.?.1. What Isn't Yet Possible](sect-modding/chXX-campaigns/what-isnt-yet-possible.md)
    - [2.?. Utility](sect-modding/chXX-utility/README.md)
        - [2.?.1 Wiki](https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/Utility)
        - [2.?.? Mod & Map Linting](sect-modding/chXX-utility/linting.md)
- [3. Developing](sect-developing/README.md)

After running mdbook init I have the following directory structure:

$ tree
.
├── SUMMARY.md
├── book
├── book.toml
└── src
    ├── SUMMARY.md
    └── chapter_1.md

2 directories, 4 files

Which does not have the structure I expect given the mdbook docs I quoted and the existing SUMMARY.md file.