I only know "dar" in its literal sense of "to give".
And I know "conocer" in its literal sense of "to know" or "to get to know".
But in reading Cien años de soledad I came to this passage:
... y con un grande alboroto de pitos y timbales daban a conocer los nuevos inventos.
Literally "dar a conocer" would be "to give to know", which doesn't make much sense.
Not only do I not know what it means but I don't know how to parse it. Is "dar a" an idiom or set phrase? Or is "dar a conocer" an idiom or set phrase? Or is it some auxiliary usage of "dar" that I don't know about?
I've looked up both "dar" and "conocer" in my Gran Larouuse bilingual dictionary to no avail.
How should I parse and understand what's going on in "dar a conocer"?