[SOLVED] Python documentation is in text format

vharishankar · 11-08-2011, 08:11 AM

I see that the Python documentation in /usr/share/doc/python-2.6.6/ is in text format. Is it possible to convert this documentation tree into HTML using any existing tools?

I ask because I wanted to avoid downloading the HTML documentation all over again if possible, since the documents are present in the distribution.

(I normally like to read the HTML documentation as it is nicer to browse through the different pages etc.)

audriusk · 11-08-2011, 09:07 AM

As the documentation is actually in reStructuredText, Sphinx is what's used to generate HTML from it. I haven't used it for Python documentation myself (actually, haven't used it at all for quite some time now), so can't help you here with any detailed instructions, but it shouldn't be hard to use.

I too think HTML docs are nice to have, but I believe Pat omitted it due to size constraints.

vharishankar · 11-08-2011, 09:18 AM

@audriusk, thanks. I will check that page. If it is not possible to automate a build, it might be easier to download the Python documentation separately, or I might write a small Python script for this

EDIT: it appears that sphinx is already a script for automating builds. Just not sure how to get it to run on the Python documentation source tree.

audriusk · 11-08-2011, 09:34 AM

After a quick search I think these instructions should do the job. If instead of that you're going to download HTML docs, here's the location: http://python.org/ftp/python/doc/2.6.6/

vharishankar · 11-08-2011, 09:41 AM

Hi audriusk, I am sure the Python documentation writers use a custom script to build their documentation in HTML and other sources. These tools have no man pages, so it's a bit difficult to figure out how to specify the source path (whether each sub-directory should be treated as a separate source or not). Rather than experiment now, I think I'll leave it as a future project.

I tried googling on "how to generate python documentation from source" but most of these links end up in pydoc related pages.

Richard Cranium · 11-08-2011, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by audriusk

I too think HTML docs are nice to have, but I believe Pat omitted it due to size constraints.

Actually, the plain text docs without the hyperlinks are almost useless. I end up going to the python web page instead of attempting to use the bundled documentation. YMMV, but I'd much rather have the html.

vharishankar · 11-08-2011, 09:07 PM

I downloaded the HTML tar.gz from the python website and unpacked into /opt/

I like to read documentation offline myself.

brianL · 11-09-2011, 02:57 AM

I'm a bit late with the information, but you could have got the Salix package here:
http://slackware.org.uk/salix/i486/13.37/salix/f/

rg3 · 11-09-2011, 02:19 PM

If you're only interested in the modules documentation, running "pydoc -p 8080" on a terminal and poiting your browser to http://localhost:8080/ could do the trick.