sphinx-build(1) - phpMan

SPHINX-BUILD(1) Sphinx SPHINX-BUILD(1)

NAME
sphinx-build - Sphinx documentation generator tool

SYNOPSIS
sphinx-build [options] <sourcedir> <outputdir> [filenames ...]

DESCRIPTION
sphinx-build generates documentation from the files in <sourcedir> and places it in the
<outputdir>.

sphinx-build looks for <sourcedir>/conf.py for the configuration settings. sphinx-quick-
start(1) may be used to generate template files, including conf.py.

sphinx-build can create documentation in different formats. A format is selected by spec-
ifying the builder name on the command line; it defaults to HTML. Builders can also per-
form other tasks related to documentation processing. For a list of available builders,
refer to sphinx-build -b.

By default, everything that is outdated is built. Output only for selected files can be
built by specifying individual filenames.

OPTIONS
-b buildername
The most important option: it selects a builder. The most common builders are:

html Build HTML pages. This is the default builder.

dirhtml
Build HTML pages, but with a single directory per document. Makes for pret-
tier URLs (no .html) if served from a webserver.

singlehtml
Build a single HTML with the whole content.

htmlhelp, qthelp, devhelp, epub
Build HTML files with additional information for building a documentation
collection in one of these formats.

applehelp
Build an Apple Help Book. Requires hiutil and codesign, which are not Open
Source and presently only available on Mac OS X 10.6 and higher.

latex Build LaTeX sources that can be compiled to a PDF document using pdflatex.

man Build manual pages in groff format for UNIX systems.

texinfo
Build Texinfo files that can be processed into Info files using makeinfo.

text Build plain text files.

gettext
Build gettext-style message catalogs (.pot files).

doctest
Run all doctests in the documentation, if the doctest extension is enabled.

linkcheck
Check the integrity of all external links.

xml Build Docutils-native XML files.

pseudoxml
Build compact pretty-printed "pseudo-XML" files displaying the internal
structure of the intermediate document trees.

See /usage/builders/index for a list of all builders shipped with Sphinx. Exten-
sions can add their own builders.

-M buildername
Alternative to -b. Uses the Sphinx make_mode module, which provides the same build
functionality as a default Makefile or Make.bat. In addition to all Sphinx /us-
age/builders/index, the following build pipelines are available:

latexpdf
Build LaTeX files and run them through pdflatex, or as per latex_engine set-
ting. If language is set to 'ja', will use automatically the pla-
tex/dvipdfmx latex to PDF pipeline.

info Build Texinfo files and run them through makeinfo.

IMPORTANT:
Sphinx only recognizes the -M option if it is placed first.

New in version 1.2.1.

-a If given, always write all output files. The default is to only write output files
for new and changed source files. (This may not apply to all builders.)

-E Don't use a saved environment (the structure caching all cross-references), but re-
build it completely. The default is to only read and parse source files that are
new or have changed since the last run.

-t tag Define the tag tag. This is relevant for only directives that only include their
content if this tag is set.

New in version 0.6.

-d path
Since Sphinx has to read and parse all source files before it can write an output
file, the parsed source files are cached as "doctree pickles". Normally, these
files are put in a directory called .doctrees under the build directory; with this
option you can select a different cache directory (the doctrees can be shared be-
tween all builders).

-j N Distribute the build over N processes in parallel, to make building on multiproces-
sor machines more effective. Note that not all parts and not all builders of
Sphinx can be parallelized. If auto argument is given, Sphinx uses the number of
CPUs as N.

New in version 1.2: This option should be considered experimental.

Changed in version 1.7: Support auto argument.

-c path
Don't look for the conf.py in the source directory, but use the given configuration
directory instead. Note that various other files and paths given by configuration
values are expected to be relative to the configuration directory, so they will
have to be present at this location too.

New in version 0.3.

-C Don't look for a configuration file; only take options via the -D option.

New in version 0.5.

-D setting=value
Override a configuration value set in the conf.py file. The value must be a num-
ber, string, list or dictionary value.

For lists, you can separate elements with a comma like this: -D
html_theme_path=path1,path2.

For dictionary values, supply the setting name and key like this: -D latex_ele-
ments.docclass=scrartcl.

For boolean values, use 0 or 1 as the value.

Changed in version 0.6: The value can now be a dictionary value.

Changed in version 1.3: The value can now also be a list value.

-A name=value
Make the name assigned to value in the HTML templates.

New in version 0.5.

-n Run in nit-picky mode. Currently, this generates warnings for all missing refer-
ences. See the config value nitpick_ignore for a way to exclude some references as
"known missing".

-N Do not emit colored output.

-v Increase verbosity (loglevel). This option can be given up to three times to get
more debug logging output. It implies -T.

New in version 1.2.

-q Do not output anything on standard output, only write warnings and errors to stan-
dard error.

-Q Do not output anything on standard output, also suppress warnings. Only errors are
written to standard error.

-w file
Write warnings (and errors) to the given file, in addition to standard error.

-W Turn warnings into errors. This means that the build stops at the first warning
and sphinx-build exits with exit status 1.

--keep-going
With -W option, keep going processing when getting warnings to the end of build,
and sphinx-build exits with exit status 1.

New in version 1.8.

-T Display the full traceback when an unhandled exception occurs. Otherwise, only a
summary is displayed and the traceback information is saved to a file for further
analysis.

New in version 1.2.

-P (Useful for debugging only.) Run the Python debugger, pdb, if an unhandled excep-
tion occurs while building.

-h, --help, --version
Display usage summary or Sphinx version.

New in version 1.2.

You can also give one or more filenames on the command line after the source and build di-
rectories. Sphinx will then try to build only these output files (and their dependencies).

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The sphinx-build refers following environment variables:

MAKE A path to make command. A command name is also allowed. sphinx-build uses it to
invoke sub-build process on make-mode.

Makefile Options

The Makefile and make.bat files created by sphinx-quickstart usually run sphinx-build only
with the -b and -d options. However, they support the following variables to customize
behavior:

PAPER This sets the 'papersize' key of latex_elements: i.e. PAPER=a4 sets it to 'a4paper'
and PAPER=letter to 'letterpaper'.

NOTE:
Usage of this environment variable got broken at Sphinx 1.5 as a4 or letter
ended up as option to LaTeX document in place of the needed a4paper, resp. let-
terpaper. Fixed at 1.7.7.

SPHINXBUILD
The command to use instead of sphinx-build.

BUILDDIR
The build directory to use instead of the one chosen in sphinx-quickstart.

SPHINXOPTS
Additional options for sphinx-build. These options can also be set via the shortcut
variable O (capital 'o').

DEPRECATION WARNINGS
If any deprecation warning like RemovedInSphinxXXXWarning are displayed when building a
user's document, some Sphinx extension is using deprecated features. In that case, please
report it to author of the extension.

To disable the deprecation warnings, please set PYTHONWARNINGS= environment variable to
your environment. For example:

o PYTHONWARNINGS= make html (Linux/Mac)

o export PYTHONWARNINGS= and do make html (Linux/Mac)

o set PYTHONWARNINGS= and do make html (Windows)

o modify your Makefile/make.bat and set the environment variable