.. _parser-api: Parser API ========== `The docutils documentation describes`__ parsers as follows: The Parser analyzes the input document and creates a node tree representation. __ https://docutils.sourceforge.io/docs/dev/hacking.html#parsing-the-document In Sphinx, the parser modules works as same as docutils. The parsers are registered to Sphinx by extensions using Application APIs; :meth:`.Sphinx.add_source_suffix()` and :meth:`.Sphinx.add_source_parser()`. The *source suffix* is a mapping from file suffix to file type. For example, ``.rst`` file is mapped to ``'restructuredtext'`` type. Sphinx uses the file type to looking for parsers from registered list. On searching, Sphinx refers to the ``Parser.supported`` attribute and picks up a parser which contains the file type in the attribute. The users can override the source suffix mappings using :confval:`source_suffix` like following:: # a mapping from file suffix to file types source_suffix = { '.rst': 'restructuredtext', '.md': 'markdown', } You should indicate file types your parser supports. This will allow users to configure their settings appropriately. .. module:: sphinx.parsers .. autoclass:: Parser :members: