Generate Documentation Automatically¶
This is a Python package for automatically building the documentation pages to
document a given Python package using Sphinx.
gendocs
allows users to keep all of their documentation directly within their
packages as pages are generated directly from the docstrings in the code!
Connections¶
Want to see examples? Check out one of the following projects which use gendocs
:
- PVGeo: A Python package for visualizing geophysical data in VTK and ParaView
- ESPA Tools: A Python package for simple loading of Landsat imagery as NumPy arrays
Get Started¶
Install gendocs
from PyPI:
$ pip install gendocs
Cookiecutter¶
Want to easily create a new project that will build its own documentation?
Try the gendocs
Cookiecutter which will prompt you for your new project’s
details and create all the needed file structures for your new, automatically
documented Python package.
To create a new project, make sure you have Cookiecutter installed in your virtual environment:
$ pip install cookiecutter
Now you can use our Cookiecutter template to create a new project ready
for gendocs
by executing the following command and following the prompts:
$ cookiecutter https://github.com/banesullivan/cookiecutter-gendocs.git
That’s it! Now you have a new Python project ready for automatic documentation and deployment.
Usage¶
Already have a Python package in need of automatic documentation? Follow these steps.
This generator is built for Sphinx (RST) documentation.
To document your package, setup sphinx and a conf.py
then add the following
somewhere near the top of your conf.py
:
# Import the package to document:
import wonderfulpackage
# Automatically generate documentation pages
from gendocs import Generator
Generator().DocumentPackages(wonderfulpackage)
That’s it! That code block above is all you need to do to document your package(s) thoroughly. Now you can build the Sphinx documentation, and all docs pages will be automatically generated.
Remove the Edit on GitHub Button
Be sure to remove the Edit on GitHub link from your project by following these steps.
Make Your Own Homepage
Note that you can also set up a base index file in your project for theGenerator
to append if you’d like to include a brief overview of the package. We simply pass the filename of our README to theDocumentPackages
method.
Let People Know¶
If your project generates documentation automatically, please add a badge to your project to let people know! We hope that these badges will stir curiosity, involvement, and community contributions to the gendocs
package.
Markdown:
[![Documentation Built by gendocs](https://img.shields.io/badge/docs%20by-gendocs-blue.svg)](https://gendocs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)
RST / Sphinx:
.. image:: https://img.shields.io/badge/docs%20by-gendocs-blue.svg
:target: https://gendocs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
:alt: Documentation Built by gendocs