1Python Documentation README 2~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3 4This directory contains the reStructuredText (reST) sources to the Python 5documentation. You don't need to build them yourself, `prebuilt versions are 6available <https://docs.python.org/dev/download.html>`_. 7 8Documentation on authoring Python documentation, including information about 9both style and markup, is available in the "`Documenting Python 10<https://devguide.python.org/documenting/>`_" chapter of the 11developers guide. 12 13 14Building the docs 15================= 16 17The documentation is built with several tools which are not included in this 18tree but are maintained separately and are available from 19`PyPI <https://pypi.org/>`_. 20 21* `Sphinx <https://pypi.org/project/Sphinx/>`_ 22* `blurb <https://pypi.org/project/blurb/>`_ 23* `python-docs-theme <https://pypi.org/project/python-docs-theme/>`_ 24 25The easiest way to install these tools is to create a virtual environment and 26install the tools into there. 27 28Using make 29---------- 30 31To get started on UNIX, you can create a virtual environment and build 32documentation with the commands:: 33 34 make venv 35 make html 36 37The virtual environment in the ``venv`` directory will contain all the tools 38necessary to build the documentation downloaded and installed from PyPI. 39If you'd like to create the virtual environment in a different location, 40you can specify it using the ``VENVDIR`` variable. 41 42You can also skip creating the virtual environment altogether, in which case 43the Makefile will look for instances of ``sphinxbuild`` and ``blurb`` 44installed on your process ``PATH`` (configurable with the ``SPHINXBUILD`` and 45``BLURB`` variables). 46 47On Windows, we try to emulate the Makefile as closely as possible with a 48``make.bat`` file. If you need to specify the Python interpreter to use, 49set the PYTHON environment variable. 50 51Available make targets are: 52 53* "clean", which removes all build files and the virtual environment. 54 55* "clean-venv", which removes the virtual environment directory. 56 57* "venv", which creates a virtual environment with all necessary tools 58 installed. 59 60* "html", which builds standalone HTML files for offline viewing. 61 62* "htmlview", which re-uses the "html" builder, but then opens the main page 63 in your default web browser. 64 65* "htmlhelp", which builds HTML files and a HTML Help project file usable to 66 convert them into a single Compiled HTML (.chm) file -- these are popular 67 under Microsoft Windows, but very handy on every platform. 68 69 To create the CHM file, you need to run the Microsoft HTML Help Workshop 70 over the generated project (.hhp) file. The make.bat script does this for 71 you on Windows. 72 73* "latex", which builds LaTeX source files as input to "pdflatex" to produce 74 PDF documents. 75 76* "text", which builds a plain text file for each source file. 77 78* "epub", which builds an EPUB document, suitable to be viewed on e-book 79 readers. 80 81* "linkcheck", which checks all external references to see whether they are 82 broken, redirected or malformed, and outputs this information to stdout as 83 well as a plain-text (.txt) file. 84 85* "changes", which builds an overview over all versionadded/versionchanged/ 86 deprecated items in the current version. This is meant as a help for the 87 writer of the "What's New" document. 88 89* "coverage", which builds a coverage overview for standard library modules and 90 C API. 91 92* "pydoc-topics", which builds a Python module containing a dictionary with 93 plain text documentation for the labels defined in 94 `tools/pyspecific.py` -- pydoc needs these to show topic and keyword help. 95 96* "suspicious", which checks the parsed markup for text that looks like 97 malformed and thus unconverted reST. 98 99* "check", which checks for frequent markup errors. 100 101* "serve", which serves the build/html directory on port 8000. 102 103* "dist", (Unix only) which creates distributable archives of HTML, text, 104 PDF, and EPUB builds. 105 106 107Without make 108------------ 109 110First, install the tool dependencies from PyPI. 111 112Then, from the ``Doc`` directory, run :: 113 114 sphinx-build -b<builder> . build/<builder> 115 116where ``<builder>`` is one of html, text, latex, or htmlhelp (for explanations 117see the make targets above). 118 119Deprecation header 120================== 121 122You can define the ``outdated`` variable in ``html_context`` to show a 123red banner on each page redirecting to the "latest" version. 124 125The link points to the same page on ``/3/``, sadly for the moment the 126language is lost during the process. 127 128 129Contributing 130============ 131 132Bugs in the content should be reported to the 133`Python bug tracker <https://bugs.python.org>`_. 134 135Bugs in the toolset should be reported to the tools themselves. 136 137You can also send a mail to the Python Documentation Team at docs@python.org, 138and we will process your request as soon as possible. 139 140If you want to help the Documentation Team, you are always welcome. Just send 141a mail to docs@python.org. 142