.. highlightlang:: rest

The Sphinx build system

=======================

.. XXX: intro...

.. _doc-build-config:

The build configuration file

----------------------------

The documentation root, that is the ``Doc`` subdirectory of the source

distribution, contains a file named ``conf.py``.  This file is called the "build

configuration file", and it contains several variables that are read and used

during a build run.

These variables are:

version : string

   A string that is used as a replacement for the ``|version|`` reST

   substitution.  It should be the Python version the documentation refers to.

   This consists only of the major and minor version parts, e.g. ``2.5``, even

   for version 2.5.1.

release : string

   A string that is used as a replacement for the ``|release|`` reST

   substitution.  It should be the full version string including

   alpha/beta/release candidate tags, e.g. ``2.5.2b3``.

Both ``release`` and ``version`` can be ``'auto'``, which means that they are

determined at runtime from the ``Include/patchlevel.h`` file, if a complete

Python source distribution can be found, or else from the interpreter running

Sphinx.

today_fmt : string

   A ``strftime`` format that is used to format a replacement for the

   ``|today|`` reST substitution.

today : string

   A string that can contain a date that should be written to the documentation

   output literally.  If this is nonzero, it is used instead of

   ``strftime(today_fmt)``.

unused_files : list of strings

   A list of reST filenames that are to be disregarded during building.  This

   could be docs for temporarily disabled modules or documentation that's not

   yet ready for public consumption.

add_function_parentheses : bool

   If true, ``()`` will be appended to the content of ``:func:``, ``:meth:`` and

   ``:cfunc:`` cross-references.

add_module_names : bool

   If true, the current module name will be prepended to all description unit

   titles (such as ``.. function::``).

Builder-specific variables

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

html_download_base_url : string

   The base URL for download links on the download page.

html_last_updated_fmt : string

   If this is not an empty string, it will be given to ``time.strftime()`` and

   written to each generated output file after "last updated on:".

html_use_smartypants : bool

   If true, use SmartyPants to convert quotes and dashes to the typographically

   correct entities.

latex_paper_size : "letter" or "a4"

   The paper size option for the LaTeX document class.

latex_font_size : "10pt", "11pt" or "12pt"

   The font size option for the LaTeX document class.