collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder 1.1

What is Sphinx?

Sphinx is the mainly tool in the Python community to build documentation. See http://sphinx.pocoo.org.

It is now used for instance by Python. See http://docs.python.org and many others

Sphinx uses reStructuredText, and can be used to write your buildout-based application. This recipe sets everything up for you, so you can provide a nice-looking documentation within your buildout, in static html, PDF or even epub.

The fact that your documentation is managed like your code makes it easy to maintain and change it.

Quick start

To use the recipe, add in your buildout configuration file a section like this:

[buildout]
parts =
    ...
    sphinxbuilder
    ...

[sphinxbuilder]
recipe = collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder
source = ${buildout:directory}/docs-source
build = ${buildout:directory}/docs

Run your buildout and you will get a few new scripts in the bin folder, called:

• sphinx-quickstart, to quickstart sphinx documentation

• sphinxbuilder, script that will

To quickstart a documentation project run, as you would normaly do with Sphinx:

$ bin/sphinx-quickstart

and anwser few questions and choose docs-source as you source folder.

To build your documentation, just run the sphinx script:

$ bin/sphinxbuilder

That’s it!

You will get a shiny Sphinx documenation in docs/html. Write your documentation, go in docs-source. Everytime source is modified, sphinxbuilder run script again.

A good starting point to write your documentation is: http://sphinx.pocoo.org/contents.html.

Plone 4

Usage with Plone 4 is even easier:

[buildout]
parts =
    ...
    sphinxbuilder
    ...

[sphinxbuilder]
recipe = collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder
interpreter = ${buildout:directory}/bin/zopepy

Follow quick-start tutorial and do not forget to add interpreter with installed eggs to access your sourcecode with Sphinx.

Supported options

The recipe supports the following options:

build (default: docs)

Specify the build documentation root.

source (default: {build-directory}/source)

Speficy the source directory of documentation.

outputs (default: html)

Multiple-line value that defines what kind of output to produce. Can be doctest, html, latex, pdf or epub.

script-name (default: name of buildout section)

The name of the script generated

interpreter

Path to python interpreter to use when invoking sphinx-builder.

extra-paths

Extra paths to be inserted into sys.path.

products

Extra product directories to be extend the Products namespace for old-style Zope Products.

Example usage

The recipe can be used without any options. We’ll start by creating a buildout that uses the recipe:

>>> write('buildout.cfg',
... """
... [buildout]
... parts = sphinxbuilder
...
... [sphinxbuilder]
... recipe = collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder
... source = collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder:docs
... """)

Let’s run the buildout:

>>> print('start ' + system(buildout))
... # doctest: +ELLIPSIS
start Installing sphinxbuilder.
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing MAKEFILE..
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing BATCHFILE..
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing custom sphinx-builder script..
Generated script '/sample-buildout/bin/sphinx-quickstart'.
Generated script '/sample-buildout/bin/sphinx-build'.
Generated script '/sample-buildout/bin/sphinx-apidoc'.
Generated script '/sample-buildout/bin/sphinx-autogen'...

What are we expecting?

A docs folder with a Sphinx structure:

>>> docs = join(sample_buildout, 'docs')
>>> ls(docs)
- Makefile
-  make.bat

A script in the bin folder to build the docs:

>>> bin = join(sample_buildout, 'bin')
>>> ls(bin)
- buildout
- sphinx-apidoc
- sphinx-autogen
- sphinx-build
- sphinx-quickstart
- sphinxbuilder

The content of the script is a simple shell script:

>>> script = join(sample_buildout, 'bin', 'sphinxbuilder')
>>> print(open(script).read())
#!/bin/bash
cd ...docs
make html

>>> print('start ' + system(script))
start /sample-buildout/bin/sphinx-build -b html -d /sample-buildout/docs/doctrees ...src/collective/recipe/sphinxbuilder/docs /sample-buildout/docs/html
...

If we want latex, we need to explicitly define it:

>>> write('buildout.cfg',
... """
... [buildout]
... parts = sphinxbuilder
...
... [sphinxbuilder]
... recipe = collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder
... source = collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder:docs
... outputs =
...     html
...     latex
... """)
>>> print('start ' + system(buildout))
... # doctest: +ELLIPSIS
start Uninstalling sphinxbuilder.
Installing sphinxbuilder.
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing MAKEFILE..
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing BATCHFILE..
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing custom sphinx-builder script...

Let’s see our script now:

>>> cat(script)
#!/bin/bash
cd ...docs
make html
make latex

Finally let’s run it:

>>> print('start ' + system(script))
start /sample-buildout/bin/sphinx-build -b html -d /sample-buildout/docs/doctrees   .../src/collective/recipe/sphinxbuilder/docs /sample-buildout/docs/html
...
<BLANKLINE>
Build finished. The HTML pages are in /sample-buildout/docs/html.
...
Build finished; the LaTeX files are in /sample-buildout/docs/latex.
Run `make' in that directory to run these through (pdf)latex...
<BLANKLINE>

If we want pdf, we need to explicitly define it:

>>> write('buildout.cfg',
... """
... [buildout]
... parts = sphinxbuilder
...
... [sphinxbuilder]
... recipe = collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder
... source = collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder:docs
... outputs =
...     html
...     latex
...     pdf
... """)
>>> print('start ' + system(buildout))
... # doctest: +ELLIPSIS
start Uninstalling sphinxbuilder.
Installing sphinxbuilder.
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing MAKEFILE..
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing BATCHFILE..
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing custom sphinx-builder script...

Let’s see our script now:

>>> cat(script)
#!/bin/bash
cd ...docs
make html
make latex
cd /sample-buildout/docs/latex && make all-pdf

We will skip running the script in tests, because the PDF builder depends on libraries which may not be installed.

If we want epub, like pdf we need to explicitly define it:

>>> write('buildout.cfg',
... """
... [buildout]
... parts = sphinxbuilder
...
... [sphinxbuilder]
... recipe = collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder
... source = collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder:docs
... outputs =
...     html
...     epub
... """)
>>> print('start ' + system(buildout))
... # doctest: +ELLIPSIS
start Uninstalling sphinxbuilder.
Installing sphinxbuilder.
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing MAKEFILE..
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing BATCHFILE..
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing custom sphinx-builder script...

Let’s see our script now:

>>> cat(script)
#!/bin/bash
cd ...docs
make html
make epub

We can also have the script run any doctests in the docs while building:

>>> write('buildout.cfg',
... """
... [buildout]
... parts = sphinxbuilder
...
... [sphinxbuilder]
... recipe = collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder
... source = collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder:docs
... outputs =
...     doctest
...     html
... """)
>>> print('start ' + system(buildout))
... # doctest: +ELLIPSIS
start Uninstalling sphinxbuilder.
Installing sphinxbuilder.
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing MAKEFILE..
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing BATCHFILE..
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing custom sphinx-builder script...

Let’s see our script now:

>>> cat(script)
#!/bin/bash
cd ...docs
make doctest
make html

Again, we will skip running them, this time to avoid a recursive fork bomb. ;)

If we want extra-paths, we can define them as normal paths or as unix wildcards (see fnmatch module)

>>> write('buildout.cfg',
... """
... [buildout]
... parts = sphinxbuilder
...
... [sphinxbuilder]
... recipe = collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder
... source = collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder:docs
... extra-paths =
...     develop-eggs/
...     eggs/*
... """)
>>> print('start ' + system(buildout))
... # doctest: +ELLIPSIS
start Uninstalling sphinxbuilder.
Installing sphinxbuilder.
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing MAKEFILE..
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing BATCHFILE..
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: writing custom sphinx-builder script..
collective.recipe.sphinxbuilder: inserting extra-paths...

Contributors

• Tarek Ziade, original author

• Rok Garbas

• Sidnei da Silva

• Hans-Peter Locher

• Domen Kozar

• Tres Seaver

• Reinout van Rees, maintainer

• Sébastien Douche

Changes