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# Miscellaneous markup

## File-wide metadata

reST has the concept of “field lists”; these are a sequence of fields marked up like this:

    :fieldname: Field content

A field list near the top of a file is parsed by docutils as the “docinfo” which is normally used to record the author, date of publication and other metadata. In Sphinx, a field list preceding any other markup is moved from the docinfo to the Sphinx environment as document metadata and is not displayed in the output; a field list appearing after the document title will be part of the docinfo as normal and will be displayed in the output.

At the moment, these metadata fields are recognized:

`tocdepth`

  The maximum depth for a table of contents of this file.

  New in version 0.4.

`nocomments`
  If set, the web application won’t display a comment form for a page generated from this source file.
`orphan`

  If set, warnings about this file not being included in any toctree will be suppressed.

  New in version 1.0.

## Meta-information markup

`.. sectionauthor::``name <email>`

  Identifies the author of the current section. The argument should include the author’s name such that it can be used for presentation and email address. The domain name portion of the address should be lower case. Example:

      .. sectionauthor:: Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org>

  By default, this markup isn’t reflected in the output in any way (it helps keep track of contributions), but you can set the configuration value `show_authors` to `True` to make them produce a paragraph in the output.

`.. codeauthor::``name <email>`

  The `codeauthor` directive, which can appear multiple times, names the authors of the described code, just like `sectionauthor` names the author(s) of a piece of documentation. It too only produces output if the `show_authors` configuration value is `True`.

## Index-generating markup

Sphinx automatically creates index entries from all object descriptions (like functions, classes or attributes) like discussed in Sphinx Domains.

However, there is also explicit markup available, to make the index more comprehensive and enable index entries in documents where information is not mainly contained in information units, such as the language reference.

`.. index::``<entries>`

  This directive contains one or more index entries. Each entry consists of a type and a value, separated by a colon.

  For example:

      .. index::
         single: execution; context
         module: __main__
         module: sys
         triple: module; search; path

      The execution context
      ---------------------

      ...

  This directive contains five entries, which will be converted to entries in the generated index which link to the exact location of the index statement (or, in case of offline media, the corresponding page number).

  Since index directives generate cross-reference targets at their location in the source, it makes sense to put them before the thing they refer to – e.g. a heading, as in the example above.

  The possible entry types are:

  single
    Creates a single index entry. Can be made a subentry by separating the subentry text with a semicolon (this notation is also used below to describe what entries are created).
  pair
    `pair: loop; statement` is a shortcut that creates two index entries, namely `loop; statement` and `statement; loop`.
  triple
    Likewise, `triple: module; search; path` is a shortcut that creates three index entries, which are `module; search path`, `search; path, module` and `path; module search`.
  see
    `see: entry; other` creates an index entry that refers from `entry` to `other`.
  seealso
    Like `see`, but inserts “see also” instead of “see”.
  module, keyword, operator, object, exception, statement, builtin
    These all create two index entries. For example, `module: hashlib` creates the entries `module; hashlib` and `hashlib; module`. (These are Python-specific and therefore deprecated.)

  You can mark up “main” index entries by prefixing them with an exclamation mark. The references to “main” entries are emphasized in the generated index. For example, if two pages contain

      .. index:: Python

  and one page contains

      .. index:: ! Python

  then the backlink to the latter page is emphasized among the three backlinks.

  For index directives containing only “single” entries, there is a shorthand notation:

      .. index:: BNF, grammar, syntax, notation

  This creates four index entries.

  Changed in version 1.1: Added `see` and `seealso` types, as well as marking main entries.

`:index:`

  While the `index` directive is a block-level markup and links to the beginning of the next paragraph, there is also a corresponding role that sets the link target directly where it is used.

  The content of the role can be a simple phrase, which is then kept in the text and used as an index entry. It can also be a combination of text and index entry, styled like with explicit targets of cross-references. In that case, the “target” part can be a full entry as described for the directive above. For example:

      This is a normal reST :index:`paragraph` that contains several
      :index:`index entries <pair: index; entry>`.

  New in version 1.1.

## Including content based on tags

`.. only::``<expression>`

  Include the content of the directive only if the expression is true. The expression should consist of tags, like this:

      .. only:: html and draft

  Undefined tags are false, defined tags (via the `-t` command-line option or within `conf.py`, see here) are true. Boolean expressions, also using parentheses (like `html and (latex or draft)`) are supported.

  The format and the name of the current builder (`html`, `latex` or `text`) are always set as a tag [1]. To make the distinction between format and name explicit, they are also added with the prefix `format_` and `builder_`, e.g. the epub builder defines the tags `html`, `epub`, `format_html` and `builder_epub`.

  These standard tags are set after the configuration file is read, so they are not available there.

  All tags must follow the standard Python identifier syntax as set out in the Identifiers and keywords documentation. That is, a tag expression may only consist of tags that conform to the syntax of Python variables. In ASCII, this consists of the uppercase and lowercase letters `A` through `Z`, the underscore `_` and, except for the first character, the digits `0` through `9`.

  New in version 0.6.

  Changed in version 1.2: Added the name of the builder and the prefixes.

  Warning

  This directive is designed to control only content of document. It could not control sections, labels and so on.

## Tables

Use reStructuredText tables, i.e. either

- grid table syntax (ref),
- simple table syntax (ref),
- csv-table syntax,
- or list-table syntax.

The table directive serves as optional wrapper of the grid and simple syntaxes.

They work fine in HTML output, however there are some gotchas when using tables in LaTeX: the column width is hard to determine correctly automatically. For this reason, the following directive exists:

`.. tabularcolumns::``column spec`

  This directive gives a “column spec” for the next table occurring in the source file. The spec is the second argument to the LaTeX `tabulary` package’s environment (which Sphinx uses to translate tables). It can have values like

      |l|l|l|

  which means three left-adjusted, nonbreaking columns. For columns with longer text that should automatically be broken, use either the standard `p{width}` construct, or tabulary’s automatic specifiers:

  `L` | flush left column with automatic width
  `R` | flush right column with automatic width
  `C` | centered column with automatic width
  `J` | justified column with automatic width

  The automatic widths of the `LRCJ` columns are attributed by `tabulary` in proportion to the observed shares in a first pass where the table cells are rendered at their natural “horizontal” widths.

  By default, Sphinx uses a table layout with `J` for every column.

  New in version 0.3.

  Changed in version 1.6: Merged cells may now contain multiple paragraphs and are much better handled, thanks to custom Sphinx LaTeX macros. This novel situation motivated the switch to `J` specifier and not `L` by default.

  Hint

  Sphinx actually uses `T` specifier having done `\newcolumntype{T}{J}`. To revert to previous default, insert `\newcolumntype{T}{L}` in the LaTeX preamble (see `latex_elements`).

  A frequent issue with tabulary is that columns with little contents are “squeezed”. The minimal column width is a tabulary parameter called `\tymin`. You may set it globally in the LaTeX preamble via `\setlength{\tymin}{40pt}` for example.

  Else, use the `tabularcolumns` directive with an explicit `p{40pt}` (for example) for that column. You may use also `l` specifier but this makes the task of setting column widths more difficult if some merged cell intersects that column.

  Warning

  Tables with more than 30 rows are rendered using `longtable`, not `tabulary`, in order to allow pagebreaks. The `L`, `R`, … specifiers do not work for these tables.

  Tables that contain list-like elements such as object descriptions, blockquotes or any kind of lists cannot be set out of the box with `tabulary`. They are therefore set with the standard LaTeX `tabular` (or `longtable`) environment if you don’t give a `tabularcolumns` directive. If you do, the table will be set with `tabulary` but you must use the `p{width}` construct (or Sphinx’s `\X` and `\Y` specifiers described below) for the columns containing these elements.

  Literal blocks do not work with `tabulary` at all, so tables containing a literal block are always set with `tabular`. The verbatim environment used for literal blocks only works in `p{width}` (and `\X` or `\Y`) columns, hence Sphinx generates such column specs for tables containing literal blocks.

  Since Sphinx 1.5, the `\X{a}{b}` specifier is used (there is a backslash in the specifier letter). It is like `p{width}` with the width set to a fraction `a/b` of the current line width. You can use it in the `tabularcolumns` (it is not a problem if some LaTeX macro is also called `\X`.)

  It is not needed for `b` to be the total number of columns, nor for the sum of the fractions of the `\X` specifiers to add up to one. For example `|\X{2}{5}|\X{1}{5}|\X{1}{5}|` is legitimate and the table will occupy 80% of the line width, the first of its three columns having the same width as the sum of the next two.

  This is used by the `:widths:` option of the table directive.

  Since Sphinx 1.6, there is also the `\Y{f}` specifier which admits a decimal argument, such has `\Y{0.15}`: this would have the same effect as `\X{3}{20}`.

  Changed in version 1.6: Merged cells from complex grid tables (either multi-row, multi-column, or both) now allow blockquotes, lists, literal blocks, … as do regular cells.

  Sphinx’s merged cells interact well with `p{width}`, `\X{a}{b}`, `Y{f}` and tabulary’s columns.

## Math

See Math support in Sphinx.

Footnotes

[1] | For most builders name and format are the same. At the moment only builders derived from the html builder distinguish between the builder format and the builder name. Note that the current builder tag is not available in `conf.py`, it is only available after the builder is initialized.