sphinx-js 1.0

Support for using Sphinx on JSDoc-documented JS code

Why

When you write a JavaScript library, how do you explain it to people? If it’s a small project in a domain your users are familiar with, JSDoc’s hierarchal list of routines might suffice. But what about for larger projects? How can you intersperse prose with your API docs without having to copy and paste things?

sphinx-js lets you use the industry-leading Sphinx documentation tool with JS projects. It provides a handful of directives, patterned after the Python-centric autodoc ones, for pulling JSDoc-formatted function and class documentation into reStructuredText pages. And, because you can keep using JSDoc in your code, you remain compatible with the rest of your JS tooling, like Google’s Closure Compiler.

Setup

1. Install JSDoc using npm.

2. Install Sphinx. (TODO: Make this more explicit for non-Python people.)

3. Make a documentation folder in your project using sphinx-quickstart.

4. Add sphinx_js to extensions in the generated Sphinx conf.py.

5. Add js_source_path = '../somewhere/else' to conf.py, assuming the root of your JS source tree is at that path, relative to conf.py itself. The default is ../, which works well when there is a docs folder at the root of your project.

Use

Document your JS code using standard JSDoc formatting:

/**
 * Return the ratio of the inline text length of the links in an element to
 * the inline text length of the entire element.
 *
 * @param {Node} node - Types or not: either works.
 * @throws {PartyError|Hearty} Multiple types work fine.
 * @returns {Number} Types and descriptions are both supported.
 */
function linkDensity(node) {
    const length = node.flavors.get('paragraphish').inlineLength;
    const lengthWithoutLinks = inlineTextLength(node.element,
                                                element => element.tagName !== 'A');
    return (length - lengthWithoutLinks) / length;
}

Our directives work much like Sphinx’s standard autodoc ones. You can specify just a function:

.. js:autofunction:: someFunction

Or you can throw in your own explicit parameter list, if you want to note optional parameters:

.. js:autofunction:: someFunction(foo, bar[, baz])

You can even add additional content. If you do, it will appear just below any extracted documentation:

.. js:autofunction:: someFunction

    Here are some things that will appear...

    * Below
    * The
    * Extracted
    * Docs

    Enjoy!

Use JSDoc namepath syntax to disambiguate same-named entities:

.. js:autofunction:: SomeClass#someInstanceMethod

Behind the scenes, sphinx-js will changes those to dotted names so that…

• Sphinx’s “shortening” syntax works: :func:`~InwardRhs.atMost` prints as merely atMost(). (For now, you should always use dots rather than other namepath separators: #~.)

• Sphinx indexes more informatively, saying methods belong to their classes.

To save some keystrokes, you can set primary_domain = 'js' in conf.py and then say simply autofunction rather than js:autofunction.

Caveats

• We don’t understand the inline JSDoc constructs like {@link foo}; you have to use Sphinx-style equivalents for now, like :js:func:`foo` (or simply :func:`foo` if you have set primary_domain = 'js' in conf.py.

• So far, we understand and convert only the JSDoc block tags @param, @returns, @throws, and their synonyms. Other ones will go poof into the ether.

• You may have to run make clean html rather than just make html, since Sphinx doesn’t notice that things need to be rebuilt unless you change your RSTs. (Changing your JS code will not suffice.)

Tests

Run python setup.py test.