Documenting matplotlib

Getting started

The documentation for matplotlib is generated from ReStructured Text using the Sphinx documentation generation tool. Sphinx-0.5 or later is required. You might still run into problems, so most developers work from the sphinx source repository (Mercurial based) because it is a rapidly evolving project:

hg clone http://bitbucket.org/birkenfeld/sphinx/
cd sphinx
python setup.py install

The documentation sources are found in the :file:`doc/` directory in the trunk. To build the users guide in html format, cd into :file:`doc/` and do:

python make.py html

or:

./make.py html

you can also pass a latex flag to make.py to build a pdf, or pass no arguments to build everything.

The output produced by Sphinx can be configured by editing the :file:`conf.py` file located in the :file:`doc/`.

Organization of matplotlib's documentation

The actual ReStructured Text files are kept in :file:`doc/users`, :file:`doc/devel`, :file:`doc/api` and :file:`doc/faq`. The main entry point is :file:`doc/index.rst`, which pulls in the :file:`index.rst` file for the users guide, developers guide, api reference, and faqs. The documentation suite is built as a single document in order to make the most effective use of cross referencing, we want to make navigating the Matplotlib documentation as easy as possible.

Additional files can be added to the various guides by including their base file name (the .rst extension is not necessary) in the table of contents. It is also possible to include other documents through the use of an include statement, such as:

.. include:: ../../TODO

Formatting

The Sphinx website contains plenty of documentation concerning ReST markup and working with Sphinx in general. Here are a few additional things to keep in mind:

Please familiarize yourself with the Sphinx directives for inline markup. Matplotlib's documentation makes heavy use of cross-referencing and other semantic markup. For example, when referring to external files, use the :file: directive.
Function arguments and keywords should be referred to using the emphasis role. This will keep matplotlib's documentation consistant with Python's documentation:
```
Here is a description of *argument*
```
Please do not use the default role:
```
Please do not describe `argument` like this.
```
nor the literal role:
```
Please do not describe ``argument`` like this.
```
Sphinx does not support tables with column- or row-spanning cells for latex output. Such tables can not be used when documenting matplotlib.
Mathematical expressions can be rendered as png images in html, and in the usual way by latex. For example:

:math:`\sin(x_n^2)` yields: \sin(x_n^2), and:
```
.. math::

  \int_{-\infty}^{\infty}\frac{e^{i\phi}}{1+x^2\frac{e^{i\phi}}{1+x^2}}
```
yields:
```
\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}\frac{e^{i\phi}}{1+x^2\frac{e^{i\phi}}{1+x^2}}
```
Interactive IPython sessions can be illustrated in the documentation using the following directive:
```
.. sourcecode:: ipython

  In [69]: lines = plot([1,2,3])
```
which would yield:
```
In [69]: lines = plot([1,2,3])
```
Footnotes [1] can be added using [#]_, followed later by:
```
.. rubric:: Footnotes

.. [#]
```
Footnotes

[1]
For example.
Use the note and warning directives, sparingly, to draw attention to important comments:
```
.. note::
   Here is a note
```
yields:

Note

here is a note

also:

Warning

here is a warning

Use the deprecated directive when appropriate:

.. deprecated:: 0.98
   This feature is obsolete, use something else.

yields:

.. deprecated:: 0.98
   This feature is obsolete, use something else.

Use the versionadded and versionchanged directives, which have similar syntax to the deprecated role:

.. versionadded:: 0.98
   The transforms have been completely revamped.

.. versionadded:: 0.98
   The transforms have been completely revamped.

Use the seealso directive, for example:

.. seealso::

   Using ReST :ref:`emacs-helpers`:
      One example

   A bit about :ref:`referring-to-mpl-docs`:
      One more

yields:

.. seealso::

   Using ResT :ref:`emacs-helpers`:
      One example

   A bit about :ref:`referring-to-mpl-docs`:
      One more

Please keep the :ref:`glossary` in mind when writing documentation. You can create a references to a term in the glossary with the :term: role.
The autodoc extension will handle index entries for the API, but additional entries in the index need to be explicitly added.

Docstrings

In addition to the aforementioned formatting suggestions:

Please limit the text width of docstrings to 70 characters.
Keyword arguments should be described using a definition list.

Note

matplotlib makes extensive use of keyword arguments as pass-through arguments, there are a many cases where a table is used in place of a definition list for autogenerated sections of docstrings.

Figures

Dynamically generated figures

Figures can be automatically generated from scripts and included in the docs. It is not necessary to explicitly save the figure in the script, this will be done automatically at build time to ensure that the code that is included runs and produces the advertised figure. Several figures will be saved with the same basename as the filename when the documentation is generated (low and high res PNGs, a PDF). Matplotlib includes a Sphinx extension (:file:`sphinxext/plot_directive.py`) for generating the images from the python script and including either a png copy for html or a pdf for latex:

.. plot:: pyplots/pyplot_simple.py
   :include-source:

If the script produces multiple figures (through multiple calls to :func:`pyplot.figure`), each will be given a numbered file name and included.

The path should be relative to the doc directory. Any plots specific to the documentation should be added to the doc/pyplots directory and committed to git. Plots from the examples directory may be referenced through the symlink mpl_examples in the doc directory. e.g.:

.. plot:: mpl_examples/pylab_examples/simple_plot.py

The :scale: directive rescales the image to some percentage of the original size, though we don't recommend using this in most cases since it is probably better to choose the correct figure size and dpi in mpl and let it handle the scaling. :include-source: will present the contents of the file, marked up as source code.

Static figures

Any figures that rely on optional system configurations need to be handled a little differently. These figures are not to be generated during the documentation build, in order to keep the prerequisites to the documentation effort as low as possible. Please run the :file:`doc/pyplots/make.py` script when adding such figures, and commit the script and the images to git. Please also add a line to the README in doc/pyplots for any additional requirements necessary to generate a new figure. Once these steps have been taken, these figures can be included in the usual way:

.. plot:: pyplots/tex_unicode_demo.py
   :include-source:

Examples

The source of the files in the examples directory are automatically included in the HTML docs. An image is generated and included for all examples in the api and pylab_examples directories. To exclude the example from having an image rendered, insert the following special comment anywhere in the script:

# -*- noplot -*-

Referring to mpl documents

In the documentation, you may want to include to a document in the matplotlib src, e.g. a license file or an image file from mpl-data, refer to it via a relative path from the document where the rst file resides, eg, in :file:`users/navigation_toolbar.rst`, we refer to the image icons with:

.. image:: ../../lib/matplotlib/mpl-data/images/subplots.png

In the users subdirectory, if I want to refer to a file in the mpl-data directory, I use the symlink directory. For example, from customizing.rst:

.. literalinclude:: ../../lib/matplotlib/mpl-data/matplotlibrc

One exception to this is when referring to the examples dir. Relative paths are extremely confusing in the sphinx plot extensions, so without getting into the dirty details, it is easier to simply include a symlink to the files at the top doc level directory. This way, API documents like :meth:`matplotlib.pyplot.plot` can refer to the examples in a known location.

In the top level doc directory we have symlinks pointing to the mpl examples:

home:~/mpl/doc> ls -l mpl_*
mpl_examples -> ../examples

So we can include plots from the examples dir using the symlink:

.. plot:: mpl_examples/pylab_examples/simple_plot.py

We used to use a symlink for :file:`mpl-data` too, but the distro becomes very large on platforms that do not support links (eg the font files are duplicated and large)

Internal section references

To maximize internal consistency in section labeling and references, use hypen separated, descriptive labels for section references, eg:

.. _howto-webapp:

and refer to it using the standard reference syntax:

See :ref:`howto-webapp`

Keep in mind that we may want to reorganize the contents later, so let's avoid top level names in references like user or devel or faq unless necesssary, because for example the FAQ "what is a backend?" could later become part of the users guide, so the label:

.. _what-is-a-backend

is better than:

.. _faq-backend

In addition, since underscores are widely used by Sphinx itself, let's prefer hyphens to separate words.

Section names, etc

For everything but top level chapters, please use Upper lower for section titles, eg Possible hangups rather than Possible Hangups

Inheritance diagrams

Class inheritance diagrams can be generated with the inheritance-diagram directive. To use it, you provide the directive with a number of class or module names (separated by whitespace). If a module name is provided, all classes in that module will be used. All of the ancestors of these classes will be included in the inheritance diagram.

A single option is available: parts controls how many of parts in the path to the class are shown. For example, if parts == 1, the class matplotlib.patches.Patch is shown as Patch. If parts == 2, it is shown as patches.Patch. If parts == 0, the full path is shown.

Example:

.. inheritance-diagram:: matplotlib.patches matplotlib.lines matplotlib.text
   :parts: 2

.. inheritance-diagram:: matplotlib.patches matplotlib.lines matplotlib.text
   :parts: 2

Emacs helpers

There is an emacs mode rst.el which automates many important ReST tasks like building and updateing table-of-contents, and promoting or demoting section headings. Here is the basic .emacs configuration:

(require 'rst)
(setq auto-mode-alist
      (append '(("\\.txt$" . rst-mode)
                ("\\.rst$" . rst-mode)
                ("\\.rest$" . rst-mode)) auto-mode-alist))

Some helpful functions:

C-c TAB - rst-toc-insert

  Insert table of contents at point

C-c C-u - rst-toc-update

    Update the table of contents at point

C-c C-l rst-shift-region-left

    Shift region to the left

C-c C-r rst-shift-region-right

    Shift region to the right

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documenting_mpl.rst

documenting_mpl.rst

Documenting matplotlib

Getting started

Organization of matplotlib's documentation

Formatting

Docstrings

Figures

Dynamically generated figures

Static figures

Examples

Referring to mpl documents

Internal section references

Section names, etc

Inheritance diagrams

Emacs helpers

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documenting_mpl.rst

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documenting_mpl.rst

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Documenting matplotlib

Getting started

Organization of matplotlib's documentation

Formatting

Docstrings

Figures

Dynamically generated figures

Static figures

Examples

Referring to mpl documents

Internal section references

Section names, etc

Inheritance diagrams

Emacs helpers