blaisep/sphinx-autoapi

A new approach to API documentation in Sphinx.

Sphinx AutoAPI

Warning

This is a pre-release version. Some or all features might not work yet.

Sphinx AutoAPI aims to provide "autodoc" or "javadoc" style documentation for Sphinx. The aim is to support all programming languages, be easy to use, and not require much configuration.

AutoAPI is a parse-only solution for both static and dynamic languages. This is in contrast to the traditional Sphinx autodoc, which is Python-only and uses code imports.

Full documentation can be found on Read the Docs.

Contents

.. toctree::
   :caption: Main
   :glob:
   :maxdepth: 2

   config
   templates

.. toctree::
   :caption: API
   :glob:
   :maxdepth: 2

   design

Basic Workflow

Sphinx AutoAPI has the following structure:

• Configure directory to look for source files
• Generate JSON from those source files, using language-specific tooling
• Map the JSON into standard AutoAPI Python objects
• Generate RST through Jinja2 templates from those Python objects

This basic framework should be easy to implement in your language of choice. All you need to do is be able to generate a JSON structure that includes your API and docs for those classes, functions, etc.

Install

First you need to install autoapi:

pip install sphinx-autoapi

Then add it to your Sphinx project's conf.py:

extensions = ['autoapi.extension']

# Document Python Code
autoapi_type = 'python'
autoapi_dir = 'path/to/python/files'

# Or, Document Go Code
autoapi_type = 'go'
autoapi_dir = 'path/to/go/files'

AutoAPI will automatically add itself to the last TOCTree in your top-level index.rst.

This is needed because we will be outputting rst files into the autoapi directory. This adds it into the global TOCTree for your project, so that it appears in the menus.

We hope to be able to dynamically add items into the TOCTree, and remove this step. However, it is currently required.

See all available configuration options in :doc:`config`.

Customize

All of the pages that AutoAPI generates are templated with Jinja2 templates. You can fully customize how pages are displayed on a per-object basis. Read more about it in :doc:`templates`.

Design

Read more about the deisgn in our :doc:`design`.

Currently Implemented

• Python (2 only -- Epydoc doesn't support Python 3)
• .Net
• Go
• Javascript

Adding a new language

Adding a new language should only take a couple of hours, assuming your language has a tool to generate JSON from API documentation.

The steps to follow:

• Add a new Mapper file in mappers/. It's probably easiest to copy an existing one, like the Javascript or Python mappers.
• Implement the :py:func:`create_class` and :py:func:`read_file` methods on the :py:class:`SphinxMapperBase`.
• Implement all appropriate object types on the :py:class:`PythonMapperBase`
• Add a test in the tests/test_integration.py, along with an example project for the testing.
• Include it in the class mapping in mappers/base.py and extension.py