A simple python utility for auto-converting numpy-style python docstrings to
markdown for use with mkdocs, an entire package at a time. It also includes a second utility, code2npdoc
, which will attempt to generate docstring templates given code for an entire project.
The preferred method for installing npdoc2md is to use pip
. (Python 3.5+ required)
pip install npdoc2md
If pip
defaults to Python2, use pip3
. You can also install from source:
git clone https://github.com/jwlodek/npdoc2md
cd npdoc2md
pip install .
Below is the result of running npdoc2md
with the -h
flag:
usage: npdoc2md [-h] [-v] -i INPUT -o OUTPUT [-s SKIP [SKIP ...]] [-d]
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-v, --version Use this flag to print out npdoc2md version info.
-i INPUT, --input INPUT
The path to the target python project or file to
convert.
-o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT
The output directory where the markdown files should
be placed.
-s SKIP [SKIP ...], --skip SKIP [SKIP ...]
List of filenames/directories to skip.
-d, --debug Add this flag to print detailed log messages during
conversion.
Basic usage will require at least target and output locations that are valid.
npdoc2md -i C:\Users\jwlodek\demo -o C:\Users\jwlodek\demo_output
You can also specify to enable debug printing with -d
, and files to skip with -s
followed by a list of files. For example, to autogenerate py_cui docs, the following command is run:
npdoc2md -i ..\..\..\py_cui -o ..\..\DocstringGenerated -s statusbar.py errors.py
which will ignore the statusbar.py
and errors.py
files.
The npdoc2md
script will recursively search the target (if it is a folder) for files ending with the .py
extension,
and will generate a markdown file for each one not specified in the ignore section. Any encountered __init__.py
files will use their containing folder's name for the name of the output markdown file.
You must follow strict docstring style rules to use npdoc2md:
- Each class of function docstring must start and end with
"""
, and the initial description must be right after the initial"""
. Ex:"""Hello this is a function
- Use numpy style guidelines for
Attributes
,Parameters
,Returns
,Raises
lists - The
Returns
list should give a return value name and type with the doc message. If it doesn't, a generic name will be assigned to the return variable
As stated previously, py_cui uses npdoc2md to auto-generate documentation to use with mkdocs
.
You may also see the Npdoc2md.md
file in this repository which was generated by running this script on itself:
npdoc2md -i .\npdoc2md.py -o .\example\.
Writing out all of the docstrings for a project is a lengthy process, so a second helper script was written to help with generating template np docs. It has the following usage:
usage: code2npdoc [-h] [-v] -i INPUT [-c] [-s SKIP [SKIP ...]] [-d]
A utility for auto-creating base numpy style docstrings for an entire python
project.
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-v, --version Add this flag for displaying version information.
-i INPUT, --input INPUT
Path to target python project or file
-c, --createtemp If this flag is set, code2npdoc will create a
temporary conversion folder without overriding your
sources.
-s SKIP [SKIP ...], --skip SKIP [SKIP ...]
List of filenames/directories to skip.
-d, --debug Add this flag to print detailed log messages during
conversion.
With similar flags as the base npdoc2md
script. Add the -c
flag if you don't want your original file to be auto-overwritten. An example of running this script on the npdoc2md
file is as follows:
code2npdoc -i npdoc2md.py -c
MIT License
Copyright (c) 2020, Jakub Wlodek