Doksit

Doksit is a tool which extracts docstring from your Python source code and generates documentation files in Markdown syntax. Later, you can feed with these files tools like MkDocs or any Markdown compatible page generators.

Installation

Doksit is works only for Python 3.x version.

$ pip install doksit

Project file layout

By default, Doksit expects file layout typical for many Python projects:

docs/               # generated .md files comes here
<yourproject>/      # here your projects really is
    __init__.py
    <subpackage1>
    <subpackage2>
    ...
tests/              # any other folders
.gitignore          # or files are ignored
...

If you don't follow above file layout, use -p <package> option to specify package where to start with docsting mining.

$ doksit api -p my.module

Usage

To generate .md files execute just doksit api or append -p to specify particular package.

$ doksit api
$ doksit api -p my.module

Without -p Doksit will try to automatically detect the <package_name>/ directory, browse its directory, scan all the Python files and get the API documentation for them (will be showed via less program if no output redirection is used).

Instead of -p, you can also use more descriptive --package.

For the redirection use the standard Unix redirection:

$ doksit api <package_name> > docs/api.md

Markdown template

The structure of the API documentation without using templates is following:

# <api_title>

## <package_name>.<module_name>

[source](https://github.com/<username>/<repository>/blob/<branch>/<package_directory>/<file>.py)

Content of the module docstring.

### class <class_name>

[source](.../<file>.py#L1-L10)

Content of the class docstring.

#### constructor
#### property <property_name>
#### method <method_name>

[source](...)

Content of the constructor / property / method docstring.

### function <function_name>

[source](...)

Content of the function docstring.

Live example you may find HERE. It's for test data used by Doksit's tests.

Documentation

Further documentation is located in the docs/ folder of this repository.

Note: This is a temporary solution until Doksit theme for the MkDocs will be ready to use the MkDocs and GitHub Pages.

FAQ

What should convice me to use Doksit (with MkDocs) instead of Sphinx?

Doksit's goal is NOT to fully replace the power of Sphinx. You should always use the right tools for the job. If you need features provided by Sphinx with reStructuredText, then surely go with them.

But if you like the MkDocs, don't need superior features (versioning, internalization, reST directives, ...) and want an API generator for it, then Doksit may help you with it.

Story - why yet another tool

Before I mention a CLI command for generating the API documentation, you should know that Doksit parses only docstrings based on a combination of

Google Docstring Style
Napoleon layer (docstring parser for Sphinx)
and a Doksit layer on top of it.

Note: If you are using the Napoleon, then only around 95 % of its features is compatible with Doksit docstring parser.

Contribution

If you've found a bug or want to suggest new features / improvements, please feel free to use GitHub Issue Tracker.

License

MIT License.

For more details see the LICENSE.

liborjelinek/doksit