| .. _doc_guidelines: |
| |
| Documentation Guidelines |
| ######################## |
| |
| .. note:: |
| |
| For instructions on building the documentation, see :ref:`zephyr_doc`. |
| |
| Zephyr Project content is written using the `reStructuredText`_ markup |
| language (.rst file extension) with Sphinx extensions, and processed |
| using Sphinx to create a formatted standalone website. Developers can |
| view this content either in its raw form as .rst markup files, or (with |
| Sphinx installed) they can build the documentation using the Makefile |
| on Linux systems, or make.bat on Windows, to |
| generate the HTML content. The HTML content can then be viewed using a |
| web browser. This same .rst content is also fed into the |
| `Zephyr documentation`_ website (with a different theme applied). |
| |
| You can read details about `reStructuredText`_ |
| and about `Sphinx extensions`_ from their respective websites. |
| |
| .. _Sphinx extensions: http://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/stable/contents.html |
| .. _reStructuredText: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/ref/rst/restructuredtext.html |
| .. _Sphinx Inline Markup: http://sphinx-doc.org/markup/inline.html#inline-markup |
| .. _Zephyr documentation: https://docs.zephyrproject.org |
| |
| This document provides a quick reference for commonly used reST and |
| Sphinx-defined directives and roles used to create the documentation |
| you're reading. |
| |
| Headings |
| ******** |
| |
| While reST allows use of both and overline and matching underline to |
| indicate a heading, we only use an underline indicator for headings. |
| |
| * Document title (h1) use "#" for the underline character |
| * First section heading level (h2) use "*" |
| * Second section heading level (h3) use "=" |
| * Third section heading level (h4) use "-" |
| |
| The heading underline must be at least as long as the title it's under. |
| |
| For example:: |
| |
| This is a title heading |
| ####################### |
| |
| some content goes here |
| |
| First section heading |
| ********************* |
| |
| |
| Content Highlighting |
| ******************** |
| |
| Some common reST inline markup samples: |
| |
| * one asterisk: ``*text*`` for emphasis (*italics*), |
| * two asterisks: ``**text**`` for strong emphasis (**boldface**), and |
| * two backquotes: ````text```` for ``inline code`` samples. |
| |
| If asterisks or backquotes appear in running text and could be confused with |
| inline markup delimiters, you can eliminate the confusion by adding a |
| backslash (``\``) before it. |
| |
| Lists |
| ***** |
| |
| For bullet lists, place an asterisk (``*``) or hyphen (``-``) at |
| the start of a paragraph and indent continuation lines with two |
| spaces. |
| |
| The first item in a list (or sublist) must have a blank line before it |
| and should be indented at the same level as the preceding paragraph |
| (and not indented itself). |
| |
| For numbered lists |
| start with a 1. or a. for example, and continue with autonumbering by |
| using a ``#`` sign. Indent continuation lines with three spaces:: |
| |
| * This is a bulleted list. |
| * It has two items, the second |
| item and has more than one line of reST text. Additional lines |
| are indented to the first character of the |
| text of the bullet list. |
| |
| 1. This is a new numbered list. If the wasn't a blank line before it, |
| it would be a continuation of the previous list (or paragraph). |
| #. It has two items too. |
| |
| a. This is a numbered list using alphabetic list headings |
| #. It has three items (and uses autonumbering for the rest of the list) |
| #. Here's the third item |
| |
| #. This is an autonumbered list (default is to use numbers starting |
| with 1). |
| |
| #. This is a second-level list under the first item (also |
| autonumbered). Notice the indenting. |
| #. And a second item in the nested list. |
| #. And a second item back in the containing list. No blank line |
| needed, but it wouldn't hurt for readability. |
| |
| Definition lists (with a term and its definition) are a convenient way |
| to document a word or phrase with an explanation. For example this reST |
| content:: |
| |
| The Makefile has targets that include: |
| |
| html |
| Build the HTML output for the project |
| |
| clean |
| Remove all generated output, restoring the folders to a |
| clean state. |
| |
| Would be rendered as: |
| |
| The Makefile has targets that include: |
| |
| html |
| Build the HTML output for the project |
| |
| clean |
| Remove all generated output, restoring the folders to a |
| clean state. |
| |
| Multi-column lists |
| ****************** |
| |
| If you have a long bullet list of items, where each item is short, you |
| can indicate the list items should be rendered in multiple columns with |
| a special ``.. rst-class:: rst-columns`` directive. The directive will |
| apply to the next non-comment element (e.g., paragraph), or to content |
| indented under the directive. For example, this unordered list:: |
| |
| .. rst-class:: rst-columns |
| |
| * A list of |
| * short items |
| * that should be |
| * displayed |
| * horizontally |
| * so it doesn't |
| * use up so much |
| * space on |
| * the page |
| |
| would be rendered as: |
| |
| .. rst-class:: rst-columns |
| |
| * A list of |
| * short items |
| * that should be |
| * displayed |
| * horizontally |
| * so it doesn't |
| * use up so much |
| * space on |
| * the page |
| |
| A maximum of three columns will be displayed, and change based on the |
| available width of the display window, reducing to one column on narrow |
| (phone) screens if necessary. We've deprecated use of the ``hlist`` |
| directive because it misbehaves on smaller screens. |
| |
| Tables |
| ****** |
| |
| There are a few ways to create tables, each with their limitations or |
| quirks. `Grid tables |
| <http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/ref/rst/restructuredtext.html#grid-tables>`_ |
| offer the most capability for defining merged rows and columns, but are |
| hard to maintain:: |
| |
| +------------------------+------------+----------+----------+ |
| | Header row, column 1 | Header 2 | Header 3 | Header 4 | |
| | (header rows optional) | | | | |
| +========================+============+==========+==========+ |
| | body row 1, column 1 | column 2 | column 3 | column 4 | |
| +------------------------+------------+----------+----------+ |
| | body row 2 | ... | ... | you can | |
| +------------------------+------------+----------+ easily + |
| | body row 3 with a two column span | ... | span | |
| +------------------------+------------+----------+ rows + |
| | body row 4 | ... | ... | too | |
| +------------------------+------------+----------+----------+ |
| |
| This example would render as: |
| |
| +------------------------+------------+----------+----------+ |
| | Header row, column 1 | Header 2 | Header 3 | Header 4 | |
| | (header rows optional) | | | | |
| +========================+============+==========+==========+ |
| | body row 1, column 1 | column 2 | column 3 | column 4 | |
| +------------------------+------------+----------+----------+ |
| | body row 2 | ... | ... | you can | |
| +------------------------+------------+----------+ easily + |
| | body row 3 with a two column span | ... | span | |
| +------------------------+------------+----------+ rows + |
| | body row 4 | ... | ... | too | |
| +------------------------+------------+----------+----------+ |
| |
| `List tables |
| <http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/ref/rst/directives.html#list-table>`_ |
| are much easier to maintain, but don't support row or column spans:: |
| |
| .. list-table:: Table title |
| :widths: 15 20 40 |
| :header-rows: 1 |
| |
| * - Heading 1 |
| - Heading 2 |
| - Heading 3 |
| * - body row 1, column 1 |
| - body row 1, column 2 |
| - body row 1, column 3 |
| * - body row 2, column 1 |
| - body row 2, column 2 |
| - body row 2, column 3 |
| |
| This example would render as: |
| |
| .. list-table:: Table title |
| :widths: 15 20 40 |
| :header-rows: 1 |
| |
| * - Heading 1 |
| - Heading 2 |
| - Heading 3 |
| * - body row 1, column 1 |
| - body row 1, column 2 |
| - body row 1, column 3 |
| * - body row 2, column 1 |
| - body row 2, column 2 |
| - body row 2, column 3 |
| |
| The ``:widths:`` parameter lets you define relative column widths. The |
| default is equal column widths. If you have a three-column table and you |
| want the first column to be half as wide as the other two equal-width |
| columns, you can specify ``:widths: 1 2 2``. If you'd like the browser |
| to set the column widths automatically based on the column contents, you |
| can use ``:widths: auto``. |
| |
| File names and Commands |
| *********************** |
| |
| Sphinx extends reST by supporting additional inline markup elements (called |
| "roles") used to tag text with special |
| meanings and allow style output formatting. (You can refer to the `Sphinx Inline Markup`_ |
| documentation for the full list). |
| |
| For example, there are roles for marking :file:`filenames` |
| (``:file:`name```) and command names such as :command:`make` |
| (``:command:`make```). You can also use the \`\`inline code\`\` |
| markup (double backticks) to indicate a ``filename``. |
| |
| For references to files that are in the Zephyr GitHub tree, a special |
| role can be used that creates a hyperlink to that file. For example a |
| reference to the reST file used to create this document can be generated |
| using ``:zephyr_file:`doc/contribute/documentation/index.rst``` that will |
| show up as :zephyr_file:`doc/contribute/documentation/index.rst`, a link to |
| the "blob" file in the github repo. There's also a |
| ``:zephyr_raw:`doc/guides/documentation/index.rst``` role that will |
| link to the "raw" content, |
| :zephyr_raw:`doc/contribute/documentation/index.rst`. (You can click on |
| these links to see the difference.) |
| |
| .. _internal-linking: |
| |
| Internal Cross-Reference Linking |
| ******************************** |
| |
| Traditional ReST links are only supported within the current file using the |
| notation:: |
| |
| Refer to the `internal-linking`_ page |
| |
| which renders as, |
| |
| Refer to the `internal-linking`_ page |
| |
| Note the use of a trailing |
| underscore to indicate an outbound link. In this example, the label was |
| added immediately before a heading, so the text that's displayed is the |
| heading text itself. You can change the text that's displayed as the |
| link writing this as:: |
| |
| Refer to the `show this text instead <internal-linking_>`_ page |
| |
| which renders as, |
| |
| Refer to the `show this text instead <internal-linking_>`_ page |
| |
| |
| External Cross-Reference Linking |
| ******************************** |
| |
| With Sphinx's help, we can create |
| link-references to any tagged text within the Zephyr Project documentation. |
| |
| Target locations in a document are defined with a label directive: |
| |
| .. code-block:: rst |
| |
| .. _my label name: |
| |
| Heading |
| ======= |
| |
| Note the leading underscore indicating an inbound link. |
| The content immediately following |
| this label must be a heading, and is the target for a ``:ref:`my label name``` |
| reference from anywhere within the Zephyr documentation. |
| The heading text is shown when referencing this label. |
| You can also change the text that's displayed for this link, such as:: |
| |
| :ref:`some other text <my label name>` |
| |
| |
| To enable easy cross-page linking within the site, each file should have |
| a reference label before its title so it can |
| be referenced from another file. These reference labels must be unique |
| across the whole site, so generic names such as "samples" should be |
| avoided. For example the top of this document's .rst file is: |
| |
| |
| .. code-block:: rst |
| |
| .. _doc_guidelines: |
| |
| Documentation Guidelines for the Zephyr Project |
| ############################################### |
| |
| |
| Other .rst documents can link to this document using the ``:ref:`doc_guidelines``` tag and |
| it will show up as :ref:`doc_guidelines`. This type of internal cross reference works across |
| multiple files, and the link text is obtained from the document source so if the title changes, |
| the link text will update as well. |
| |
| You can also define links to any URL and then reference it in your document. |
| For example, with this label definition in the document:: |
| |
| .. _Zephyr Wikipedia Page: |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyr_(operating_system) |
| |
| you can reference it with:: |
| |
| Read the `Zephyr Wikipedia Page`_ for more information about the |
| project. |
| |
| |
| \`any\` links |
| ************* |
| |
| Within the Zephyr project, we've defined the default role to be "any", |
| meaning if you just write a phrase in back-ticks, e.g., |
| ```doc_guidelines```, Sphinx will search through all domains looking for |
| something called doc_guidelines to link to. In this case it will find |
| the label at the top of this document, and link to `doc_guidelines`. |
| This can be useful for linking to doxygen-generated links for function |
| names and such, but will cause a warning such as:: |
| |
| WARNING: 'any' reference target not found: doc_giudelines |
| |
| if you misspelled ```doc_guidelines``` as ```doc_giudelines```. |
| |
| Non-ASCII Characters |
| ******************** |
| |
| You can insert non-ASCII characters such as a Trademark symbol (|trade|), |
| by using the notation ``|trade|``. |
| Available replacement names are defined in an include file used during the Sphinx processing |
| of the reST files. The names of these replacement characters are the same as used in HTML |
| entities used to insert characters in HTML, e.g., \™ and are defined in the |
| file ``sphinx_build/substitutions.txt`` as listed here: |
| |
| .. literalinclude:: ../../substitutions.txt |
| :language: rst |
| |
| We've kept the substitutions list small but others can be added as |
| needed by submitting a change to the ``substitutions.txt`` file. |
| |
| Code and Command Examples |
| ************************* |
| |
| Use the reST ``code-block`` directive to create a highlighted block of |
| fixed-width text, typically used for showing formatted code or console |
| commands and output. Smart syntax highlighting is also supported (using the |
| Pygments package). You can also directly specify the highlighting language. |
| For example:: |
| |
| .. code-block:: c |
| |
| struct z_object { |
| char *name; |
| uint8_t perms[CONFIG_MAX_THREAD_BYTES]; |
| uint8_t type; |
| uint8_t flags; |
| uint32_t data; |
| } __packed; |
| |
| Note the blank line between the ``code-block`` directive and the first |
| line of the code-block body, and the body content is indented three |
| spaces (to the first non-white space of the directive name). |
| |
| This would be rendered as: |
| |
| .. code-block:: c |
| |
| struct z_object { |
| char *name; |
| uint8_t perms[CONFIG_MAX_THREAD_BYTES]; |
| uint8_t type; |
| uint8_t flags; |
| uint32_t data; |
| } __packed; |
| |
| |
| You can specify other languages for the ``code-block`` directive, |
| including ``c``, ``python``, and ``rst``, and also ``console``, |
| ``bash``, or ``shell``. If you want no syntax highlighting, use the |
| language ``none``, for example:: |
| |
| .. code-block:: none |
| |
| This would be a block of text styled with a background |
| and box, but with no syntax highlighting. |
| |
| Would display as: |
| |
| .. code-block:: none |
| |
| This would be a block of text styled with a background |
| and box, but with no syntax highlighting. |
| |
| There's a shorthand for writing code blocks too: end the introductory |
| paragraph with a double colon (``::``) and indent the code block content |
| by three spaces. On output, only one colon will be shown. The |
| highlighting package makes a best guess at the type of content in the |
| block and highlighting purposes. |
| |
| Images |
| ****** |
| |
| Images are included in documentation by using an image directive:: |
| |
| .. image:: ../../images/doc-gen-flow.png |
| :align: center |
| :alt: alt text for the image |
| |
| or if you'd like to add an image caption, use:: |
| |
| .. figure:: ../../images/doc-gen-flow.png |
| :alt: image description |
| |
| Caption for the figure |
| |
| The file name specified is relative to the document source file, |
| and we recommend putting images into an ``images`` folder where the document |
| source is found. The usual image formats handled by a web browser are |
| supported: JPEG, PNG, GIF, and SVG. Keep the image size only as large |
| as needed, generally at least 500 px wide but no more than 1000 px, and |
| no more than 250 KB unless a particularly large image is needed for |
| clarity. |
| |
| Tabs, spaces, and indenting |
| *************************** |
| |
| Indenting is significant in reST file content, and using spaces is |
| preferred. Extra indenting can (unintentionally) change the way content |
| is rendered too. For lists and directives, indent the content text to |
| the first non-white space in the preceding line. For example:: |
| |
| * List item that spans multiple lines of text |
| showing where to indent the continuation line. |
| |
| 1. And for numbered list items, the continuation |
| line should align with the text of the line above. |
| |
| .. code-block:: |
| |
| The text within a directive block should align with the |
| first character of the directive name. |
| |
| Refer to the Zephyr :ref:`coding_style` for additional requirements. |
| |
| zephyr-app-commands Directive |
| ***************************** |
| |
| .. include:: ../../_extensions/zephyr/application.py |
| :start-line: 10 |
| :start-after: ''' |
| :end-before: ''' |
| |
| For example, the ``.. zephyr-app-commands`` listed above would |
| render like this in the generated HTML output: |
| |
| .. zephyr-app-commands:: |
| :zephyr-app: samples/hello_world |
| :board: qemu_x86 |
| :goals: build |
| |
| Alternative Tabbed Content |
| ************************** |
| |
| As introduced in the :ref:`getting_started`, you can provide alternative |
| content to the reader via a tabbed interface. When the reader clicks on |
| a tab, the content for that tab is displayed, for example:: |
| |
| .. tabs:: |
| |
| .. tab:: Apples |
| |
| Apples are green, or sometimes red. |
| |
| .. tab:: Pears |
| |
| Pears are green. |
| |
| .. tab:: Oranges |
| |
| Oranges are orange. |
| |
| will display as: |
| |
| .. tabs:: |
| |
| .. tab:: Apples |
| |
| Apples are green, or sometimes red. |
| |
| .. tab:: Pears |
| |
| Pears are green. |
| |
| .. tab:: Oranges |
| |
| Oranges are orange. |
| |
| Tabs can also be grouped, so that changing the current tab in one area |
| changes all tabs with the same name throughout the page. For example: |
| |
| .. tabs:: |
| |
| .. group-tab:: Linux |
| |
| Linux Line 1 |
| |
| .. group-tab:: macOS |
| |
| macOS Line 1 |
| |
| .. group-tab:: Windows |
| |
| Windows Line 1 |
| |
| .. tabs:: |
| |
| .. group-tab:: Linux |
| |
| Linux Line 2 |
| |
| .. group-tab:: macOS |
| |
| macOS Line 2 |
| |
| .. group-tab:: Windows |
| |
| Windows Line 2 |
| |
| In this latter case, we're using ``.. group-tab::`` instead of simply |
| ``.. tab::``. Under the hood, we're using the `sphinx-tabs |
| <https://github.com/djungelorm/sphinx-tabs>`_ extension that's included |
| in the Zephyr setup. Within a tab, you can have most any content *other |
| than a heading* (code-blocks, ordered and unordered lists, pictures, |
| paragraphs, and such). You can read more about sphinx-tabs from the |
| link above. |
| |
| Instruction Steps |
| ***************** |
| |
| Also introduced in the :ref:`getting_started` is a style that makes it |
| easy to create tutorial guides with clearly identified steps. Add |
| the ``.. rst-class:: numbered-step`` directive immediately before a |
| second-level heading (by project convention, a heading underlined with |
| asterisks ``******``, and it will be displayed as a numbered step, |
| sequentially numbered within the document. For example:: |
| |
| .. rst-class:: numbered-step |
| |
| Put your right hand in |
| ********************** |
| |
| .. rst-class:: numbered-step |
| |
| Put your right hand in |
| ********************** |
| |
| See the :zephyr_raw:`doc/develop/getting_started/index.rst` source file and |
| compare with the :ref:`getting_started` to see a full example. As implemented, |
| only one set of numbered steps is intended per document. |
| |
| For instructions on building the documentation, see :ref:`zephyr_doc`. |