pydocmd

– insipired by the Keras Documentation

Pydocmd uses MkDocs and extended Markdown syntax to generate beautiful Python API documentation.

Todo

• Support + suffix to include documented members of a module/class
• Expand and link cross-references (eg. #SomeClass)
• Parse, format and link types listed in parameter/member/raise/return type docstrings (eg. someattr (int): This is...)

Installation

pip install pydoc-markdown
pip install git+https://github.com/NiklasRosenstein/pydoc-markdown.git  # latest development version

Usage

Pydocmd can generate plain Markdown files from Python modules using the pydocmd simple command. Specify one or more module names on the command-line. Supports the + syntax to include members of the module (or ++ to include members of the members, etc.)

pydocmd simple mypackage+ mypackage.mymodule+ > docs.md

Alternatively, pydocmd wraps the MkDocs command-line interface and generates the markdown pages beforehand. Simply use pydocmd build to build the documentation, or pydocmd serve to serve the documentation on a local HTTP server. The pydocmd gh-deploy from MkDocs is also supported.

A configuration file pydocmd.yml is required to use pydocmd in this mode. Below is an example configuration. To get started, create docs/ directory and a file pydocmd.yml inside of it. Copy the configuration below and adjust it to your needs, then run pydocmd build from the docs/ directory.

site_name: "My Documentation"

# This tells pydocmd which pages to generate from which Python modules,
# functions and classes. At the first level is the page name, below that
# is a tree of Python member names (modules, classes, etc.) that should be
# documented. Higher indentation leads to smaller header size.
generate:
- baz/cool-stuff.md:
  - foobar.baz:
    - foobar.baz.CoolClass+     # (+ to include members)
    - foobar.baz.some_function
- baz/more-stuff.md:
  - foobar.more++               # (++ to include members, and their members)

# MkDocs pages configuration. The `<<` operator is sugar added by pydocmd
# that allows you to use an external Markdown file (eg. your project's README)
# in the documentation. The path must be relative to current working directory.
# This configuration is not mandatory if you have your own mkdocs.yml config file.
pages:
- Home: index.md << ../README.md
- foobar.baz:
  - Cool Stuff: baz/cool-stuff.md

# These options all show off their default values. You don't have to add
# them to your configuration if you're fine with the default.
docs_dir: sources
gens_dir: _build/pydocmd     # This will end up as the MkDocs 'docs_dir'
site_dir: _build/site
theme:    readthedocs
loader:   pydocmd.loader.PythonLoader
preprocessor: pydocmd.preprocessor.Preprocessor

# Whether to output headers as markdown or HTML.  Used to workaround
# https://github.com/NiklasRosenstein/pydoc-markdown/issues/11.  The default is
# to generate HTML with unique and meaningful id tags, which can't be done with
# markdown.
#
# Note: if using the simple generator mode, this will default to 'markdown'
# instead of 'html'.
headers: html

# Additional search path for your Python module. If you use Pydocmd from a
# subdirectory of your project (eg. docs/), you may want to add the parent
# directory here.
additional_search_paths:
- ..

Syntax

Cross-references

Symbols in the same namespace may be referenced by using a hash-symbol (#) directly followed by the symbols' name, including relative references. Note that using parentheses for function names is encouraged and will be ignored and automatically added when converting docstrings. Examples: #ClassName.member or #mod.function().

For absolute references for modules or members in names that are not available in the current global namespace, #::mod.member must be used (note the two preceeding two double-colons).

For long reference names where only some part of the name should be displayed, the syntax #X~some.reference.name can be used, where X is the number of elements to keep. If X is omitted, it will be assumed 1. Example: #~some.reference.name results in only name being displayed.

In order to append additional characters that are not included in the actual reference name, another hash-symbol can be used, like #Signal#s.

Sections

Sections can be generated with the Markdown # <Title> syntax. It is important to add a whitespace after the hash-symbol (#), as otherwise it would represent a cross-reference. Some special sections alter the rendered result of their content, including

• Arguments (1)
• Parameters (1)
• Attributes (1)
• Members (1)
• Raises (2)
• Returns (2)

(1): Lines beginning with <ident> [(<type>[, ...])]: are treated as argument/parameter or attribute/member declarations. Types listed inside the parenthesis (optional) are cross-linked, if possible. For attribute/member declarations, the identifier is typed in a monospace font.

(2): Lines beginning with <type>[, ...]: are treated as raise/return type declarations and the type names are cross-linked, if possible.

Lines following a name's description are considered part of the most recent documentation unless separated by another declaration or an empty line. <type> placeholders can also be tuples in the form (<type>[, ...]).

Code Blocks

GitHub-style Markdown code-blocks with language annotations can be used.

```python
>>> for i in range(100):
...
```

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Changes

v2.0.6-quilt3 (2022-08-02)

• yaml safe_load

v2.0.5-quilt3 (2018-11-15)

The Quilt version of pydocmd is modified to:

• include additional special_methods and to easily to exclude them
• Fix issue reading classmethod/staticmethod signatures
• Use signatures as title, not under title in a code block
• Minor display improvements/preferences
• Handle google docstrings to render them as markdown
• Fix handling of codeblocks under sections
• Add handling for doctest-style code examples:

v2.0.5 (2018-11-15)

• Now copies all files from the docs_dir (to include images etc.) (see #56)
• Fix error with delayed imports changing dictionary size during iteration (see #57)
• Add headers option which can be of value 'html' or 'markdown' (see #55)
• Default headers option to 'markdown' in simple mode (see #59)

v2.0.4 (2018-07-24)

• Add -c key=value argument for generate and simple command
• Add filter=["docstring"] option (#43)
• Fix regex for detecting cross-references (#44)
• Handle classes that don't define __init__() (PR#51)
• Add support for reStructuredText Markup (eg. :class:`MyClass` ) (PR#46, #1)
• Handle @property functions (PR#50)

v2.0.3

• Fix #41, #36, #31
• Merged #39

v2.0.2

• Fix #25 -- Text is incorrectly rendered as code
• Fix #26 -- Broken links for URLs with fragment identifiers
• No longer transforms titles in a docstring that are indented (eg. to avoid an indented code block with a # comment to be corrupted)

v2.0.1

• Support additional_search_path key in configuration
• Render headers as HTML <hX> tags rather than Markdown tags, so we assign a proper ID to them
• Fix #21 -- AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'signature'
• Now requires the six module
• FIx #22 -- No blank space after header does not render codeblocks

v2.0.0

• Complete overhaul of pydoc-markdown employing MkDocs and the Markdown module.

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Copyright © 2017-2018 Niklas Rosenstein