Sphinx - Documenting Django models

Question

I'm using Sphinx in order to document a Django application I have.

When auto-generating documents I would like Sphinx to add the fields of each module within the documentation.

Sphinx totally skips these. In fact there is no trace of the fields whatsoever.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

You have to use

@param description

in the model's docstring, for each field you want to be documented by sphinx.

Or in alternative, you should take a look at this snippet that does what you want (minus the boring writing part)

[EDIT]

If you plan to use this snippet, in django>=1.6

obj._meta._fields() 

has been removed please change it to

_meta.fields 

Answer 2

Here is a snippet mentioned by @Samuele Mattiuzzo above, updated to support actual Django versions (tested on 1.11 LTS):

import inspect
from django.utils.html import strip_tags

def process_docstring(app, what, name, obj, options, lines):
    # This causes import errors if left outside the function
    from django.db import models

    # Only look at objects that inherit from Django's base model class
    if inspect.isclass(obj) and issubclass(obj, models.Model):
        # Grab the field list from the meta class
        fields = obj._meta.fields

        for field in fields:
            # Decode and strip any html out of the field's help text
            help_text = strip_tags(field.help_text)

            # Decode and capitalize the verbose name, for use if there isn't
            # any help text
            verbose_name = field.verbose_name

            if help_text:
                # Add the model field to the end of the docstring as a param
                # using the help text as the description
                lines.append(u':param %s: %s' % (field.attname, help_text))
            else:
                # Add the model field to the end of the docstring as a param
                # using the verbose name as the description
                lines.append(u':param %s: %s' % (field.attname, verbose_name))

            # Add the field's type to the docstring
            lines.append(u':type %s: %s' % (field.attname, type(field).__name__))

    # Return the extended docstring
    return lines


def setup(app):
    # Register the docstring processor with sphinx
    app.connect('autodoc-process-docstring', process_docstring)

Just add it to the end of your conf.py and model fields will be added automatically to documentation.