README.rst
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://docs.python.org/devguide/documenting.html>`_" chapter of the
11developers guide.
12
13
14Building the docs
15=================
16
17You need to have `Sphinx <http://sphinx-doc.org/>`_ installed; it is the toolset
18used to build the docs. It is not included in this tree, but maintained
19separately and `available from PyPI <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Sphinx>`_.
20
21
22Using make
23----------
24
25A Makefile has been prepared so that on Unix, provided you have installed
26Sphinx, you can just run ::
27
28 make html
29
30to build the HTML output files.
31
32On Windows, we try to emulate the Makefile as closely as possible with a
33``make.bat`` file.
34
35To use a Python interpreter that's not called ``python``, use the standard
36way to set Makefile variables, using e.g. ::
37
38 make html PYTHON=python3
39
40On Windows, set the PYTHON environment variable instead.
41
42To use a specific sphinx-build (something other than ``sphinx-build``), set
43the SPHINXBUILD variable.
44
45Available make targets are:
46
47* "clean", which removes all build files.
48
49* "html", which builds standalone HTML files for offline viewing.
50
51* "htmlview", which re-uses the "html" builder, but then opens the main page
52 in your default web browser.
53
54* "htmlhelp", which builds HTML files and a HTML Help project file usable to
55 convert them into a single Compiled HTML (.chm) file -- these are popular
56 under Microsoft Windows, but very handy on every platform.
57
58 To create the CHM file, you need to run the Microsoft HTML Help Workshop
59 over the generated project (.hhp) file. The make.bat script does this for
60 you on Windows.
61
62* "latex", which builds LaTeX source files as input to "pdflatex" to produce
63 PDF documents.
64
65* "text", which builds a plain text file for each source file.
66
67* "epub", which builds an EPUB document, suitable to be viewed on e-book
68 readers.
69
70* "linkcheck", which checks all external references to see whether they are
71 broken, redirected or malformed, and outputs this information to stdout as
72 well as a plain-text (.txt) file.
73
74* "changes", which builds an overview over all versionadded/versionchanged/
75 deprecated items in the current version. This is meant as a help for the
76 writer of the "What's New" document.
77
78* "coverage", which builds a coverage overview for standard library modules and
79 C API.
80
81* "pydoc-topics", which builds a Python module containing a dictionary with
82 plain text documentation for the labels defined in
83 `tools/pyspecific.py` -- pydoc needs these to show topic and keyword help.
84
85* "suspicious", which checks the parsed markup for text that looks like
86 malformed and thus unconverted reST.
87
88* "check", which checks for frequent markup errors.
89
90* "serve", which serves the build/html directory on port 8000.
91
92* "dist", (Unix only) which creates distributable archives of HTML, text,
93 PDF, and EPUB builds.
94
95
96Without make
97------------
98
99Install the Sphinx package and its dependencies from PyPI.
100
101Then, from the ``Doc`` directory, run ::
102
103 sphinx-build -b<builder> . build/<builder>
104
105where ``<builder>`` is one of html, text, latex, or htmlhelp (for explanations
106see the make targets above).
107
108
109Contributing
110============
111
112Bugs in the content should be reported to the
113`Python bug tracker <https://bugs.python.org>`_.
114
115Bugs in the toolset should be reported in the
116`Sphinx bug tracker <https://github.com/sphinx-doc/sphinx/issues>`_.
117
118You can also send a mail to the Python Documentation Team at docs@python.org,
119and we will process your request as soon as possible.
120
121If you want to help the Documentation Team, you are always welcome. Just send
122a mail to docs@python.org.
123