Specific Admonitions

Admonitions are specially marked "topics" that can appear anywhere an ordinary body element can. They contain arbitrary body elements. Typically, an admonition is rendered as an offset block in a document, sometimes outlined or shaded, with a title matching the admonition type. For example:

.. DANGER::
   Beware killer rabbits!

This directive might be rendered something like this:

+------------------------+
|        !DANGER!        |
|                        |
| Beware killer rabbits! |
+------------------------+

The following admonition directives have been implemented:

• attention
• caution
• danger
• error
• hint
• important
• note
• tip
• warning

Any text immediately following the directive indicator (on the same line and/or indented on following lines) is interpreted as a directive block and is parsed for normal body elements. For example, the following "note" admonition directive contains one paragraph and a bullet list consisting of two list items:

.. note:: This is a note admonition.
   This is the second line of the first paragraph.

   - The note contains all indented body elements
     following.
   - It includes this bullet list.

Generic Admonition

This is a generic, titled admonition. The title may be anything the author desires.

The author-supplied title is also used as a "class" attribute value after being converted into a valid identifier form (down-cased; non-alphanumeric characters converted to single hyphens; "admonition-" prefixed). For example, this admonition:

.. admonition:: And, by the way...

   You can make up your own admonition too.

becomes the following document tree (pseudo-XML):

<document source="test data">
    <admonition class="admonition-and-by-the-way">
        <title>
            And, by the way...
        <paragraph>
            You can make up your own admonition too.

The following option is recognized:

class : text

Override the computed "class" attribute value. See the class directive below.

Image

An "image" is a simple picture:

.. image:: picture.png

The URI for the image source file is specified in the directive argument. As with hyperlink targets, the image URI may begin on the same line as the explicit markup start and target name, or it may begin in an indented text block immediately following, with no intervening blank lines. If there are multiple lines in the link block, they are stripped of leading and trailing whitespace and joined together.

Optionally, the image link block may contain a flat field list, the image options. For example:

.. image:: picture.jpeg
   :height: 100
   :width: 200
   :scale: 50
   :alt: alternate text
   :align: right

The following options are recognized:

alt : text

Alternate text: a short description of the image, displayed by applications that cannot display images, or spoken by applications for visually impaired users.

height : integer

The height of the image in pixels, used to reserve space or scale the image vertically.

width : integer

The width of the image in pixels, used to reserve space or scale the image horizontally.

scale : integer

The uniform scaling factor of the image, a percentage (but no "%" symbol is required or allowed). "100" means full-size.

align : "top", "middle", "bottom", "left", "center", or "right"

The alignment of the image, equivalent to the HTML <img> tag's "align" attribute. The values "top", "middle", and "bottom" control an image's vertical alignment (relative to the text baseline); they are only useful for inline images (substitutions). The values "left", "center", and "right" control an image's horizontal alignment, allowing the image to float and have the text flow around it. The specific behavior depends upon the browser or rendering software used.

class : text

Set a "class" attribute value on the image element. See the class directive below.

Figure

A "figure" consists of image data (including image options), an optional caption (a single paragraph), and an optional legend (arbitrary body elements):

.. figure:: picture.png
   :scale: 50
   :alt: map to buried treasure

   This is the caption of the figure (a simple paragraph).

   The legend consists of all elements after the caption.  In this
   case, the legend consists of this paragraph and the following
   table:

   +-----------------------+-----------------------+
   | Symbol                | Meaning               |
   +=======================+=======================+
   | .. image:: tent.png   | Campground            |
   +-----------------------+-----------------------+
   | .. image:: waves.png  | Lake                  |
   +-----------------------+-----------------------+
   | .. image:: peak.png   | Mountain              |
   +-----------------------+-----------------------+

There must be blank lines before the caption paragraph and before the legend. To specify a legend without a caption, use an empty comment ("..") in place of the caption.

The "figure" directive supports all of the options of the "image" directive (see image options above). In addition, the following options are recognized:

figwidth : integer or "image"

The width of the figure in pixels, to limit the horizontal space used. A special value of "image" is allowed, in which case the included image's actual width is used (requires PIL [1]). If the image file is not found or the required software is unavailable, this option is ignored.

Sets the "width" attribute of the "figure" doctree element.

This option does not scale the included image; use the "width" image option for that.

+---------------------------+
|        figure             |
|                           |
|<------ figwidth --------->|
|                           |
|  +---------------------+  |
|  |     image           |  |
|  |                     |  |
|  |<--- width --------->|  |
|  +---------------------+  |
|                           |
|The figure's caption should|
|wrap at this width.        |
+---------------------------+

figclass : text

Set a "class" attribute value on the figure element. See the class directive below.

Topic

A topic is like a block quote with a title, or a self-contained section with no subsections. Use the "topic" directive to indicate a self-contained idea that is separate from the flow of the document. Topics may occur anywhere a section or transition may occur. Body elements (including topics) may not contain nested topics.

The directive's sole argument is interpreted as the topic title; the next line must be blank. All subsequent lines make up the topic body, interpreted as body elements. For example:

.. topic:: Topic Title

    Subsequent indented lines comprise
    the body of the topic, and are
    interpreted as body elements.

The following option is recognized:

class : text

Set a "class" attribute value on the topic element. See the class directive below.

Sidebar

Sidebars are like miniature, parallel documents that occur inside other documents, providing related or reference material. A sidebar is typically offset by a border and "floats" to the side of the page; the document's main text may flow around it. Sidebars can also be likened to super-footnotes; their content is outside of the flow of the document's main text.

Sidebars may occur anywhere a section or transition may occur. Body elements (including sidebars) may not contain nested sidebars.

The directive's sole argument is interpreted as the sidebar title, which may be followed by a subtitle option (see below); the next line must be blank. All subsequent lines make up the sidebar body, interpreted as body elements. For example:

.. sidebar:: Sidebar Title
   :subtitle: Optional Sidebar Subtitle

   Subsequent indented lines comprise
   the body of the sidebar, and are
   interpreted as body elements.

The following options are recognized:

subtitle : text

The sidebar's subtitle.

class : text

Set a "class" attribute value on the sidebar element. See the class directive below.

Line Block

The "line-block" directive constructs an element where whitespace (including linebreaks) is significant and inline markup is supported. It is equivalent to a parsed literal block with different rendering: typically in an ordinary serif typeface instead of a typewriter/monospaced face, and not automatically indented. (Have the line-block directive begin a block quote to get an indented line block.) Line blocks are useful for address blocks and verse (poetry, song lyrics), where the structure of lines is significant. For example, here's a classic:

"To Ma Own Beloved Lassie: A Poem on her 17th Birthday", by
Ewan McTeagle (for Lassie O'Shea):

    .. line-block::

        Lend us a couple of bob till Thursday.
        I'm absolutely skint.
        But I'm expecting a postal order and I can pay you back
            as soon as it comes.
        Love, Ewan.

The following option is recognized:

class : text

Set a "class" attribute value on the line_block element. See the class directive below.

Parsed Literal Block

Unlike an ordinary literal block, the "parsed-literal" directive constructs a literal block where the text is parsed for inline markup. It is equivalent to a line block with different rendering: typically in a typewriter/monospaced typeface, like an ordinary literal block. Parsed literal blocks are useful for adding hyperlinks to code examples. However, care must be taken with the text, because inline markup is recognized; there is no protection from parsing. Backslash-escapes may be necessary in places.

For example, all the element names in this content model are links:

.. parsed-literal::

    ((title_,
      subtitle_?)?,
     docinfo_?,
     decoration_?,
     `%structure.model;`_)

The following option is recognized:

class : text

Set a "class" attribute value on the literal_block element. See the class directive below.

Rubric

The "rubric" directive inserts a "rubric" element into the document tree. A rubric is like an informal heading that doesn't correspond to the document's structure.

The following option is recognized:

class : text

Set a "class" attribute value on the rubric element. See the class directive below.

Epigraph

Produces an epigraph-class block quote. For example, this input:

.. epigraph::

   No matter where you go, there you are.

   -- Buckaroo Banzai

becomes this document tree fragment:

<block_quote class="epigraph">
    <paragraph>
        No matter where you go, there you are.
    <attribution>
        Buckaroo Banzai

Highlights

Produces a highlights-class block quote. See Epigraph above.

Pull-Quote

Produces a pull-quote-class block quote. See Epigraph above.

Table of Contents

The "contents" directive inserts a table of contents (TOC) in two passes: initial parse and transform. During the initial parse, a "pending" element is generated which acts as a placeholder, storing the TOC title and any options internally. At a later stage in the processing, the "pending" element is replaced by a "topic" element, a title and the table of contents proper.

The directive in its simplest form:

.. contents::

Language-dependent boilerplate text will be used for the title. The English default title text is "Contents".

An explicit title, may be specified:

.. contents:: Table of Contents

The title may span lines, although it is not recommended:

.. contents:: Here's a very long Table of
   Contents title

Options may be specified for the directive, using a field list:

.. contents:: Table of Contents
   :depth: 2

If the default title is to be used, the options field list may begin on the same line as the directive marker:

.. contents:: :depth: 2

The following options are recognized:

depth : integer

The number of section levels that are collected in the table of contents. The default is unlimited depth.

local : flag (empty)

Generate a local table of contents. Entries will only include subsections of the section in which the directive is given. If no explicit title is given, the table of contents will not be titled.

backlinks : "entry" or "top" or "none"

Generate links from section headers back to the table of contents entries, the table of contents itself, or generate no backlinks.

class : text

Set a "class" attribute value on the topic element. See the class directive below.

Automatic Section Numbering

The "sectnum" (or "section-autonumbering") directive automatically numbers sections and subsections in a document. Section numbers are of the "multiple enumeration" form, where each level has a number, separated by periods. For example, the title of section 1, subsection 2, subsubsection 3 would have "1.2.3" prefixed.

The "sectnum" directive does its work in two passes: the initial parse and a transform. During the initial parse, a "pending" element is generated which acts as a placeholder, storing any options internally. At a later stage in the processing, the "pending" element triggers a transform, which adds section numbers to titles. Section numbers are enclosed in a "generated" element, and titles have their "auto" attribute set to "1".

The following options are recognized:

depth : integer

The number of section levels that are numbered by this directive. The default is unlimited depth.

Target Footnotes

The "target-notes" directive creates a footnote for each external target in the text, and corresponding footnote references after each reference. For every explicit target (of the form, .. _target name: URL) in the text, a footnote will be generated containing the visible URL as content.

Footnotes

NOT IMPLEMENTED YET

@@@

Citations

NOT IMPLEMENTED YET

@@@

Meta

The "meta" directive is used to specify HTML metadata stored in HTML META tags. "Metadata" is data about data, in this case data about web pages. Metadata is used to describe and classify web pages in the World Wide Web, in a form that is easy for search engines to extract and collate.

Within the directive block, a flat field list provides the syntax for metadata. The field name becomes the contents of the "name" attribute of the META tag, and the field body (interpreted as a single string without inline markup) becomes the contents of the "content" attribute. For example:

.. meta::
   :description: The reStructuredText plaintext markup language
   :keywords: plaintext, markup language

This would be converted to the following HTML:

<meta name="description"
    content="The reStructuredText plaintext markup language">
<meta name="keywords" content="plaintext, markup language">

Support for other META attributes ("http-equiv", "scheme", "lang", "dir") are provided through field arguments, which must be of the form "attr=value":

.. meta::
   :description lang=en: An amusing story
   :description lang=fr: Un histoire amusant

And their HTML equivalents:

<meta name="description" lang="en" content="An amusing story">
<meta name="description" lang="fr" content="Un histoire amusant">

Some META tags use an "http-equiv" attribute instead of the "name" attribute. To specify "http-equiv" META tags, simply omit the name:

.. meta::
   :http-equiv=Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1

HTML equivalent:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
     content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">

Imagemap

NOT IMPLEMENTED YET

Non-standard element: imagemap.

Including an External Document Fragment

The "include" directive reads a reStructuredText-formatted text file and parses it in the current document's context at the point of the directive. For example:

This first example will be parsed at the document level, and can
thus contain any construct, including section headers.

.. include:: inclusion.txt

Back in the main document.

    This second example will be parsed in a block quote context.
    Therefore it may only contain body elements.  It may not
    contain section headers.

    .. include:: inclusion.txt

If an included document fragment contains section structure, the title adornments must match those of the master document.

The text encoding of the master input source is used for included files.

The following options are recognized:

literal : flag (empty)

The entire included text is inserted into the document as a single literal block (useful for program listings).

Raw Data Pass-Through

The "raw" directive indicates non-reStructuredText data that is to be passed untouched to the Writer. The name of the output format is given in the first argument. The interpretation of the raw data is up to the Writer. A Writer may ignore any raw output not matching its format.

For example, the following input would be passed untouched by an HTML Writer:

.. raw:: html

   <hr width=50 size=10>

A LaTeX Writer could insert the following raw content into its output stream:

.. raw:: latex

   \documentclass[twocolumn]{article}

Raw data can also be read from an external file, specified in a directive option. In this case, the content block must be empty. For example:

.. raw:: html
   :file: inclusion.html

The following options are recognized:

file : string

The local filesystem path of a raw data file to be included.

url : string

An Internet URL reference to a raw data file to be included.

Replacement Text

The "replace" directive is used to indicate replacement text for a substitution reference. It may be used within substitution definitions only. For example, this directive can be used to expand abbreviations:

.. |reST| replace:: reStructuredText

Yes, |reST| is a long word, so I can't blame anyone for wanting to
abbreviate it.

As reStructuredText doesn't support nested inline markup, the only way to create a reference with styled text is to use substitutions with the "replace" directive:

I recommend you try |Python|_.

.. |Python| replace:: Python, *the* best language around
.. _Python: http://www.python.org/

Unicode Character Codes

The "unicode" directive converts Unicode character codes (numerical values) to characters, and may be used in substitution definitions only. Codes may be decimal numbers, hexadecimal numbers (prefixed by 0x, x, \x, u, or \u), or XML-style numeric character entities (e.g. &#x1a2b;). Codes are case-insensitive.

Text following " .. " is a comment and is ignored. Spaces are ignored, and any other text remains as-is.

Example:

Copyright |copy| 2003, |BogusMegaCorp (TM)|.

.. |copy| unicode:: 0xA9 .. copyright sign
.. |BogusMegaCorp (TM)| unicode:: BogusMegaCorp U+2122
   .. with trademark sign

Class

The "class" directive sets a "class" attribute value on the first immediately following non-comment element [2]. For details of the "class" attribute, see its entry in The Docutils Document Tree. The "class" attribute value is converted to lowercase and all non-alphanumeric characters are converted to hyphens in order to match this regular expression: [a-z](-?[a-z0-9]+)*. See the docstring from docutils.nodes.make_id for the rationale.

Examples:

.. class:: special

This is a "special" paragraph.

.. class:: exceptional

An Exceptional Section
======================

This is an ordinary paragraph.

The text above is parsed and transformed into this doctree fragment:

<paragraph class="special">
    This is a "special" paragraph.
<section class="exceptional">
    <title>
        An Exceptional Section
    <paragraph>
        This is an ordinary paragraph.

.. class:: highlights
..

    Block quote text.

Restructuredtext-Test-Directive

This directive is provided for test purposes only. (Nobody is expected to type in a name that long!) It is converted into a level-1 (info) system message showing the directive data, possibly followed by a literal block containing the rest of the directive block.