Sphinx is a Python documentation generator that allows you to create high-quality documentation in various output formats, including HTML, PDF, ePub, and man pages. It is also used to generate blogs, homepages, and even books.
Sphinx is written in Python and supports Python 3.9+. It is a powerful tool that offers many features for writing technical documentation, including:
- Automatic code documentation: Sphinx can automatically generate documentation for your Python code, including docstrings, function signatures, and class attributes.
- Cross-referencing: Sphinx can automatically generate cross-references between different parts of your documentation, such as code snippets, figures, and tables.
- Indices: Sphinx can automatically generate indices of your documentation, such as a general index, module index, and glossary.
- Themes: Sphinx allows you to customize the look and feel of your documentation using themes.
- Extensions: Sphinx has a large ecosystem of extensions that can be used to add additional features to your documentation, such as code testing, math support, and diagrams.
Sphinx is used by many popular Python projects, including Django, NumPy, SciPy, Scikit-Learn, and Matplotlib. It is also used by a number of non-Python projects, such as the Linux kernel and the FreeBSD documentation.
To get started with Sphinx, you can use the sphinx-quickstart command to create a new Sphinx project. This will create a basic directory structure for your project and generate a few example files.
Once you have created a Sphinx project, you can start writing your documentation in reStructuredText or Markdown. Sphinx will automatically generate the output documentation when you run the sphinx-build command.
Here is a simple example of a Sphinx reStructuredText document:
This is a sample Sphinx document.
.. automodule:: example
This is a paragraph of text.
.. image:: example.png
This is a figure.
.. table::
:header: Column 1, Column 2
:widths: 20, 80
Row 1, Cell 1
Row 1, Cell 2
Row 2, Cell 1
Row 2, Cell 2
This document can be built into HTML using the following command:
sphinx-build -b html .
This will create a new directory called build/html containing the generated HTML documentation.
Sphinx is a powerful tool for writing technical documentation. It is easy to use and offers many features for creating high-quality documentation.
