NDD Docker Sphinx

Introduction
Installation
1. From source
2. From Docker Hub
Usage
Configuration
1. Extensions
2. Install an extension
Custom "extensions"
1. Git extension"
Limitations

Introduction

A Docker image for the Sphinx documentation builder.

The image is based upon the official python:3.6.

Besides the Sphinx documentation builder (sphinx-doc), this image contains:

The versioning scheme of this Docker image is <SPHINX_VERSION>-<DOCKER_IMAGE_VERSION>. For example, 1.8.1-9 stands for the 9th version of the Docker image using Sphinx 1.8.1.

Installation

From source

git clone [email protected]:ndd-docker/ndd-docker-sphinx.git
cd ndd-docker-sphinx
docker build -t ddidier/sphinx-doc .

From Docker Hub

docker pull ddidier/sphinx-doc

Usage

The documentation directory on the host <HOST_DATA_DIR> must be mounted as a volume under /doc in the container. Use -v <HOST_DATA_DIR>:/doc to use a specific documentation directory or -v $(pwd):/doc to use the current directory as the documentation directory.

Sphinx will be executed inside the container by the sphinx-doc user which is created by the Docker entry point. You must pass to the container the environment variable USER_ID set to the UID of the user the files will belong to. This is the -e USER_ID=$UID part in the examples of this documentation.

### Initialisation

Sphinx provides the sphinx-quickstart script to create a skeleton of the documentation directory. You should however use the custom tailored sphinx-init script which:

calls sphinx-quickstart
customizes the Makefile (livehtml target)
customizes the configuration file conf.py (offcial and custom extensions, markdown support, theme)

The directory <HOST_DATA_DIR> must already exist, otherwise the script will fail!

docker run -it -v <HOST_DATA_DIR>:/doc -e USER_ID=$UID ddidier/sphinx-doc sphinx-init

All arguments accepted by sphinx-quickstart are passed to sphinx-init. For example, you may want to pass the project name on the command line:

docker run -it -v <HOST_DATA_DIR>:/doc -e USER_ID=$UID ddidier/sphinx-doc sphinx-init --project my-documentation

### Interactive

The so-called interactive mode is when you issue commands from inside the container.

docker run -it -v <HOST_DATA_DIR>:/doc -e USER_ID=$UID ddidier/sphinx-doc

You should now be in the /doc directory, otherwise just cd to /doc.

To see all the official targets, call make help.

To create a PDF document, call make latexpdf.

To create HTML documents, call make html.

Non interactive

The so-called non-interactive mode is when you issue commands from the host directly.

To see all the official targets, call:

docker run -i -v <HOST_DATA_DIR>:/doc -e USER_ID=$UID ddidier/sphinx-doc make help

To create a PDF document, call make latexpdf.

docker run -i -v <HOST_DATA_DIR>:/doc -e USER_ID=$UID ddidier/sphinx-doc make latexpdf

To create HTML documents, call make html.

docker run -i -v <HOST_DATA_DIR>:/doc -e USER_ID=$UID ddidier/sphinx-doc make html

To create HTML documents and watch for changes, call make livehtml:

docker run -it -v <HOST_DATA_DIR>:/doc -p 8000:8000 -e USER_ID=$UID ddidier/sphinx-doc make livehtml
#                                         ^^^^
#                                         open your browser at http://localhost:8000/

To trigger a full build while in watch mode, issue from the <HOST_DATA_DIR> folder on the host:

rm -rf build && touch source/conf.py

Tips & Tricks

If you need the directory <HOST_DATA_DIR> to NOT be the root of the documentation, change the make directory with -C. Previous commands such as make target become make -C /some/directory/ target. Please see the pseudo Git extension below for an example.

## Configuration

Warning: to simplify the sphinx-init script, some variables are overriden at the end of the conf.py file. This is most notably the case of the extensions and html_theme variables.

Bundled extensions

This image comes with a number of already bundled extensions.

To enable a bundled extension, simply uncomment the associated line in your conf.py.

To disable a bundled extension, simply comment the associated line in your conf.py.

Other extensions

IF you want to use an extension which is not already bundled with this image, you need to:

First extend the image by creating a new Dockerfile:

FROM ddidier/sphinx-doc:latest

RUN pip install 'a-sphinx-extension       == A.B.C' \
                'another-sphinx-extension == X.Y.Z'

Then add a line in your conf.py referencing the extension:

extensions = [
    ...
    'a.sphinx.extension',
    'another.sphinx.extension',
]

Custom "extensions"

This should be extracted in actual Sphinx extensions...

At the time being, the Python code is stored in the subdirectory /_python and is copied when calling sphinx-init.

Git extension

This pseudo extension reads the properties of a Git repository to display in the left navigation panel and in the footer:

the current time of the build if any file is not committed or untracked, or
the name of the tag associated with the last commit if it exists, or
the hash of the last commit

Enable it by uncommenting the following lines in your conf.py:

# Must be defined somewhere
html_context = {}

import os.path
source_directory = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))
python_directory = os.path.join(source_directory, '_python')
exec(open(os.path.join(python_directory, 'sphinx-git.py'), 'rb').read())

This extension requires access to the .git directory:

if the documentation is at the same level than the .git directory:

# /my-project
# ├── .git
# ├── Makefile
# ├── build
# └── source
#     └── conf.py

docker run -i -v /my-project:/doc -e USER_ID=$UID ddidier/sphinx-doc make html

if the documentation is not at the same level than the .git directory:

# /my-project
# ├── .git
# ├── sources
# └── documentation
#     ├── Makefile
#     ├── build
#     └── source
#         └── conf.py

docker run -i -v /my-project:/doc -e USER_ID=$UID ddidier/sphinx-doc make -C /doc/documentation html

Limitations

PDF generation does not work when including Markdown file using recommonmark.
PDF generation does not take into account Excel tables.

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