Sphinx is a

documentation generator A documentation generator is a programming tool that generates software documentation intended for programmers (API documentation) or end users (end-user guide), or both, from a set of source code files, and in some cases, binary files. Some genera ...

written and used by the Python community. It is written in

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

, and also used in other environments.

Purpose and function

Sphinx converts

reStructuredText reStructuredText (RST, ReST, or reST) is a file format for textual data used primarily in the Python programming language community for technical documentation. It is part of the Docutils project of the Python Doc-SIG (Documentation Special Inte ...

files into

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

s and other formats including

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

EPub EPUB is an e-book file format that uses the ".epub" file extension. The term is short for ''electronic publication'' and is sometimes styled ''ePub''. EPUB is supported by many e-readers, and compatible software is available for most smartphones ...

Texinfo Texinfo is a typesetting syntax used for generating documentation in both on-line and printed form (creating filetypes as , , , etc., and its own hypertext format, ) with a single source file. It is implemented by a computer program released as fr ...

and

man A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromos ...

. reStructuredText is extensible, and Sphinx exploits its extensible nature through a number of extensions – for autogenerating documentation from source code, writing mathematical notation or highlighting source code, etc.

HTML Themes

Sphinx provides the ability to apply themes to HTML and HTML-based formats. Sphinx has several builtin themes including alabaster, classic, sphinxdoc, and scrolls. Popular themes that can be installed as Python modules include: *

Read the Docs Read the Docs is an open-sourced free software documentation hosting platform. It generates documentation written with the Sphinx documentation generator. The site was created in 2010 by Eric Holscher, Bobby Grace, and Charles Leifer. On March 9, ...

* Sphinx Bootstrap * Guzzle * Documatt

History and use

The first public release, version 0.1.61611, was announced on March 21, 2008. It was developed for, and is used extensively by, the

project for documentation. Since its introduction in 2008, Sphinx has been adopted by many other important Python projects, including

Bazaar A bazaar () or souk (; also transliterated as souq) is a marketplace consisting of multiple small Market stall, stalls or shops, especially in the Middle East, the Balkans, North Africa and India. However, temporary open markets elsewhere, suc ...

SQLAlchemy SQLAlchemy is an open-source SQL toolkit and object-relational mapper (ORM) for the Python programming language released under the MIT License. Description SQLAlchemy's philosophy is that relational databases behave less like object collectio ...

MayaVi ''Māyāvi'' is a Malayalam comic strip appearing in the Indian comic magazine ''Balarama'' owned by MM Publications. The series, was first published in the August 1984 issue of Balarama. Artist M. Mohandas gradually took over the drawing of ...

SageMath SageMath (previously Sage or SAGE, "System for Algebra and Geometry Experimentation") is a computer algebra system (CAS) with features covering many aspects of mathematics, including algebra, combinatorics, graph theory, numerical analysis, numbe ...

SciPy SciPy (pronounced "sigh pie") is a free and open-source Python library used for scientific computing and technical computing. SciPy contains modules for optimization, linear algebra, integration, interpolation, special functions, FFT, signal ...

, Django and

Pylons Pylon may refer to: Structures and boundaries * Pylon (architecture), the gateway to the inner part of an Ancient Egyptian temple or Christian cathedral * Pylon, a support tower structure for suspension bridges or highways * Pylon, an orange mar ...

. It is also used for the

Blender A blender (sometimes called a mixer or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen appliance, kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsion, emulsify food and other substances. A stationary blender consists of a blender ...

user manual and Python API documentation. In 2010, Eric Holscher announced the creation of the

project as part of an effort to make maintenance of software documentation easier. Read the Docs automates the process of building and uploading Sphinx documentation after every commit.

Linux kernel

The Linux kernel's documentation subsystem underwent changes in 2016. Starting in the 4.7 cycle, the documentation started switching over to use Sphinx. * Talk at LCA2016: * Talk at LCA2017:

References

External links