Can sphinx link to documents that are not located in directories below the root document?

Question

I am using Sphinx to document a non-Python project. I want to distribute ./doc folders in each submodule, containing submodule_name.rst files to document that module. I then want to suck those files into the master hierarchy to create a spec for the entire design.

I.e.:

Project   docs     spec       project_spec.rst       conf.py   modules     module1       docs         module1.rst       src     module2       docs         module2.rst       src 

I attempted to include files in the master project_spec.rst document toctree like this:

.. toctree::    :numbered:    :maxdepth: 2     Module 1 <../../modules/module1/docs/module1> 

However this error message results:

WARNING: toctree contains reference to nonexisting document u'modules/module1/docs/module1'

Is it not possible to use ../ in a document path somehow?

Update: Added conf.py location

Update: Other than the include trick below, this is still (2019) not possible. There is an open issue that keeps getting pushed forward: https://github.com/sphinx-doc/sphinx/issues/701

Answer 1

Yes, you can!

In lieu of a symlink (which won't work on Windows), create a stub document that has nothing in it but a .. include:: directive.

I ran into this trying to link to a README file that was in the top of the source tree. I put the following in a file called readme_link.rst:

.. include:: ../README 

Then in index.rst, I made the toctree look like:

Contents:  .. toctree::    :maxdepth: 2     readme_link    other_stuff 

And now I have a link to my release notes on my index page.

Thanks to http://reinout.vanrees.org/weblog/2010/12/08/include-external-in-sphinx.html for the suggestion

Answer 2

It seems that the answer is no, the documents listed in the toc-tree must reside within the source directory, that is, the directory containing your master document and conf.py (and any subdirectories).

From the sphinx-dev mailing list:

At STScI, we write documentation for individual projects in Sphinx, and then also produce a "master document" that includes (using toctree) a number of these other project-specific documents. To do this, we create symlinks in the master document's doc source directory to the projects' doc source directories, since toctree really doesn't seem to want to include files outside of the doc source tree.

So rather than copying files using shutil you could try adding symlinks to all of your modules in the Project/docs/spec directory. If you create a symlink to Project/modules you would then reference these files in your toc-tree simply as modules/module1/docs/module1 etc.