Sphinx inline code highlight

Question

I use Sphinx to make a website that contains code samples. I'm successful using the .. code-block directive to get syntax highlighting. But I can't get inline syntax highlighting using this code:

.. role:: bash(code)
   :language: bash

Test inline: :bash:`export FOO="bar"`.

.. code-block:: bash

    export FOO="bar"

which produces this output i.e. inline code not highlighted while block code is:

Problem to me is that the generated HTML for inline code contains long class names while it does not for code blocks. Here is the output HTML (indented for readability):

<p>Test inline:
    <tt class="code bash docutils literal">
        <span class="name builtin">
            <span class="pre">export</span>
        </span>
        <span class="name variable">
            <span class="pre">FOO</span>
        </span>
        <span class="operator">
            <span class="pre">=</span>
        </span>
        <span class="literal string double">
            <span class="pre">&quot;bar&quot;</span>
        </span>
    </tt>.
</p>


<p>Test code-block:</p>
<div class="highlight-bash">
    <div class="highlight">
        <pre>
            <span class="nb">export </span>
            <span class="nv">FOO</span>
            <span class="o">=</span>
            <span class="s2">&quot;bar&quot;</span>
        </pre>
    </div>
</div>

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Answer 1

syntax_highlight is an ordinary docutils setting, which can be set in docutils.conf. This file is respected by Sphinx too, if placed in the Sphinx's configuration directory (where conf.py resides):

[restructuredtext parser]
syntax_highlight = short

This is much better than patching docutils or sphinx code or creating a long name CSS file.

Answer 2

Found a better (sphinx-only) solution: in sphinx/builders/html.py find a line

from docutils.core import Publisher

and change it to:

from docutils.core import Publisher
def process_programmatic_settings(self, settings_spec,
                                  settings_overrides,
                                  config_section):
    if self.settings is None:
        defaults = (settings_overrides or {}).copy()
        # Propagate exceptions by default when used programmatically:
        defaults.setdefault('traceback', True)
        defaults.setdefault('syntax_highlight', 'short') # ADDED THIS LINE
        self.get_settings(settings_spec=settings_spec,
                          config_section=config_section,
                          **defaults)
Publisher.process_programmatic_settings = process_programmatic_settings

This solution is better then previous ones: since it doesn't double the amount of css rules, and doesn't modify docutils.

Still, ideal solution would only change conf.py. So there's a plenty space for improvement.