.. _glossary: Glossary ======== .. glossary:: builder A class (inheriting from :class:`~sphinx.builders.Builder`) that takes parsed documents and performs an action on them. Normally, builders translate the documents to an output format, but it is also possible to use builders that e.g. check for broken links in the documentation, or build coverage information. See :doc:`/usage/builders/index` for an overview over Sphinx's built-in builders. configuration directory The directory containing :file:`conf.py`. By default, this is the same as the :term:`source directory`, but can be set differently with the **-c** command-line option. directive A reStructuredText markup element that allows marking a block of content with special meaning. Directives are supplied not only by docutils, but Sphinx and custom extensions can add their own. The basic directive syntax looks like this: .. sourcecode:: rst .. directivename:: argument ... :option: value Content of the directive. See :ref:`rst-directives` for more information. document name Since reST source files can have different extensions (some people like ``.txt``, some like ``.rst`` -- the extension can be configured with :confval:`source_suffix`) and different OSes have different path separators, Sphinx abstracts them: :dfn:`document names` are always relative to the :term:`source directory`, the extension is stripped, and path separators are converted to slashes. All values, parameters and such referring to "documents" expect such document names. Examples for document names are ``index``, ``library/zipfile``, or ``reference/datamodel/types``. Note that there is no leading or trailing slash. domain A domain is a collection of markup (reStructuredText :term:`directive`\ s and :term:`role`\ s) to describe and link to :term:`object`\ s belonging together, e.g. elements of a programming language. Directive and role names in a domain have names like ``domain:name``, e.g. ``py:function``. Having domains means that there are no naming problems when one set of documentation wants to refer to e.g. C++ and Python classes. It also means that extensions that support the documentation of whole new languages are much easier to write. For more information, refer to :doc:`/usage/domains/index`. environment A structure where information about all documents under the root is saved, and used for cross-referencing. The environment is pickled after the parsing stage, so that successive runs only need to read and parse new and changed documents. extension A custom :term:`role`, :term:`directive` or other aspect of Sphinx that allows users to modify any aspect of the build process within Sphinx. For more information, refer to :doc:`/usage/extensions/index`. master document The document that contains the root :rst:dir:`toctree` directive. root document Same as :term:`master document`. object The basic building block of Sphinx documentation. Every "object directive" (e.g. :rst:dir:`py:function` or :rst:dir:`object`) creates such a block; and most objects can be cross-referenced to. RemoveInSphinxXXXWarning The feature which is warned will be removed in Sphinx-XXX version. It usually caused from Sphinx extensions which is using deprecated. See also :ref:`when-deprecation-warnings-are-displayed`. role A reStructuredText markup element that allows marking a piece of text. Like directives, roles are extensible. The basic syntax looks like this: ``:rolename:`content```. See :ref:`rst-inline-markup` for details. source directory The directory which, including its subdirectories, contains all source files for one Sphinx project. reStructuredText An easy-to-read, what-you-see-is-what-you-get plaintext markup syntax and parser system.