Exhale Configs Module

The configs module exists to contain the Sphinx Application configurations specific to this extension. Almost every global variable defined in this file can be modified using the exhale_args in conf.py. The convention for this file is as follows:

  1. Things that are not supposed to change, because their value is expected to be constant, are declared in ALL_CAPS. See

  2. Internal / private variables that are not supposed to changed except for by this extension are declared as _lower_case_with_single_leading_underscore as is common in Python ;).

  3. Every other variable is declared as camelCase, indicating that it can be configured indirectly by using it as a key in the arguments to exhale_args present in your conf.py. For example, one of the required arguments for this extension is containmentFolder. This means that the key "containmentFolder" is expected to be present in exhale_args.

    exhale_args = {
       "containmentFolder": "./api",
       # ...
    }
    

    Read the documentation for the various configs present to see what the various options are to modify the behavior of Exhale.

Required Configuration Arguments

Both Breathe and Exhale require that you already have Doxygen xml documentation generated before they are launched. See the Fully Automated Building section for more information.

There are 6 required arguments you must provide in your conf.py. 2 are for Breathe, and 4 are for Exhale.

Required Arguments for Breathe

Breathe is setup to allow for multiple projects being controlled by a single conf.py to rule them all. Exhale only supports generating one “project” API at a time. The project that Exhale will generate is determined by what you signal to Breathe as your default project. The two arguments that must be present in your conf.py for Breathe are as follows:

Mapping of Project Names to Doxygen XML Output Paths
breathe_projects (dict)
  • Keys: strings that are the name of a given project.

  • Values: strings that are (absolute or relative) paths to where the Doxygen XML output has been generated.

So if the Doxygen documentation was generated to the path ./doxyoutput/xml, and your project was called "My Project", you would include the following in your conf.py:

breathe_projects = {
    "My Project": "./doxyoutput/xml"
}

Tip

When specifying relative paths, they are all relative to conf.py.

Selecting the Project to Generate
breathe_default_project (str)

Since Breathe can support multiple projects, specify the default project so that Exhale will know which one to use (when more than one project is available).

Following from the example above, where the key in breathe_projects we want to generate is "My Project", you would include the following you your conf.py:

breathe_default_project = "My Project"

Required Arguments for Exhale

Users must provide the following values to exhale_args in their conf.py.

Tip

Recall the variable name conventions from above. If you want to specify the value for containmentFolder so that containmentFolder is populated, the name of the key is the string "containmentFolder". Each entry below details what the type of the value of the key should be. So in this case you might have

exhale_args = {
    "containmentFolder": "./api",
    # other required entries here
}
exhale.configs.containmentFolder = None
Required

The location where Exhale is going to generate all of the reStructuredText documents.

Value in exhale_args (str)

The value of key "containmentFolder" should be a string representing the (relative or absolute) path to the location where Exhale will be creating all of the files. Relative paths are relative to the Sphinx application source directory, which is almost always wherever the file conf.py is.

Note

To better help you the user know what Exhale is generating (and therefore safe to delete), it is a hard requirement that containmentFolder is a subdirectory of the Sphinx Source Directory. AKA the path "." will be rejected, but the path "./api" will be accepted.

The suggested value for "containmentFolder" is "./api", or "./source/api" if you have separate source and build directories with Sphinx. When the html is eventually generated, this will make for a more human friendly url being generated.

Warning

The verbiage subdirectory means direct subdirectory. So the path "./library/api" will be rejected. This is because I make the assumption that containmentFolder is “owned” by Exhale / is safe to delete.

exhale.configs.rootFileName = None
Required

The name of the file that you will be linking to from your reStructuredText documents. Do not include the containmentFolder path in this file name, Exhale will create the file "{contaimentFolder}/{rootFileName}" for you.

Value in exhale_args (str)

The value of key "rootFileName" should be a string representing the name of the file you will be including in your top-level toctree directive. In order for Sphinx to be happy, you should include a .rst suffix. All of the generated API uses reStructuredText, and that will not ever change.

For example, if you specify

  • "containmentFolder" = "./api", and

  • "rootFileName" = "library_root.rst"

Then exhale will generate the file ./api/library_root.rst. You would then include this file in a toctree directive (say in index.rst) with:

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 2

   about
   api/library_root
exhale.configs.rootFileTitle = None
Required

The title to be written at the top of rootFileName, which will appear in your file including it in the toctree directive.

Value in exhale_args (str)

The value of the key "rootFileTitle" should be a string that has the title of the main library root document folder Exhale will be generating. The user is required to supply this value because its value directly affects the overall presentation of your documentation. For example, if you are including the Exhale generated library root file in your index.rst top-level toctree directive, the title you supply here will show up on both your main page, as well as in the navigation menus.

An example value could be "Library API".

exhale.configs.doxygenStripFromPath = None
Required

When building on Read the Docs, there seem to be issues regarding the Doxygen variable STRIP_FROM_PATH when built remotely. That is, it isn’t stripped at all. This value enables Exhale to manually strip the path.

Value in exhale_args (str)

The value of the key "doxygenStripFromPath" should be a string representing the (relative or absolute) path to be stripped from the final documentation. As with containmentFolder, relative paths are relative to the Sphinx source directory (where conf.py is). Consider the following directory structure:

my_project/
├───docs/
│       conf.py
│
└───include/
    └───my_project/
            common.hpp

In this scenario, if you supplied "doxygenStripFromPath" = "..", then the file page for common.hpp would list its declaration as include/my_project/common.hpp. If you instead set it to be "../include", then the file page for common.hpp would list its declaration as just my_project/common.hpp.

As a consequence, modification of this variable directly affects what shows up in the file view hierarchy. In the previous example, the difference would really just be whether or not all files are nestled underneath a global include folder or not.

Warning

It is your responsibility to ensure that the value you provide for this configuration is valid. The file view hierarchy will almost certainly break if you give nonsense.

Note

Depending on your project layout, some links may be broken in the above example if you use "../include" that work when you use "..". To get your docs working, revert to "..". If you’re feeling nice, raise an issue on GitHub and let me know — I haven’t been able to track this one down yet :/

Particularly, this seems to happen with projects that have duplicate filenames in different folders, e.g.:

include/
└───my_project/
    │    common.hpp
    │
    └───viewing/
            common.hpp

Optional Configuration Arguments

Build Process Logging, Colors, and Debugging

exhale.configs.verboseBuild = False
Optional

If you are having a hard time getting documentation to build, or say hierarchies are not appearing as they should be, set this to True.

Value in exhale_args (bool)

Set the boolean value to be True to include colorized printing at various stages of the build process.

Warning

There is only one level of verbosity: excessively verbose. All logging is written to sys.stderr. See alwaysColorize.

Tip

Looking at the actual code of Exhale trying to figure out what is going on? All logging sections have a comment # << verboseBuild just before the logging section. So you can grep -r '# << verboseBuild' exhale/ if you’re working with the code locally.

exhale.configs.alwaysColorize = True
Optional

Exhale prints various messages throughout the build process to both sys.stdout and sys.stderr. The default behavior is to colorize output always, regardless of if the output is being directed to a file. This is because you can simply use cat or less -R. By setting this to False, when redirecting output to a file the color will not be included.

Value in exhale_args (bool)

The default is True because I find color to be something developers should embrace. Simply use less -R to view colorized output conveniently. While I have a love of all things color, I understand you may not. So just set this to False.

Note

There is not and will never be a way to remove the colorized logging from the console. This only controls when sys.stdout and sys.stderr are being redirected to a file.

exhale.configs.generateBreatheFileDirectives = False
Optional

Append the .. doxygenfile:: directive from Breathe for every file page generated in the API.

Value in exhale_args (bool)

If True, then the breathe directive (doxygenfile) will be incorporated at the bottom of the file.

Danger

This feature is not intended for production release of pages, only debugging.

This feature is “deprecated” in lieu of minimal parsing of the input Doxygen xml for a given documented file. This feature can be used to help determine if Exhale has made a mistake in parsing the file level documentation, but usage of this feature will create many duplicate id’s and the Sphinx build process will be littered with complaints.

Usage of this feature will completely dismantle the links coordinated in all parts of Exhale. Because duplicate id’s are generated, Sphinx chooses where to link to. It seems to reliably choose the links generated by the Breathe File directive, meaning the majority of the navigational setup of Exhale is pretty much invalidated.

Root API Document Customization

The main library page (at the path given by "{containmentFolder}/{rootFileName}") that you will link to from your documentation is laid out as follows:

1

{{ rootFileTitle }}

Heading

2

{{ afterTitleDescription }}

Section 1

3

Class Hierarchy

Section 2

4

File Hierarchy

Section 3

5

{{ afterHierarchyDescription }}

Section 4

6

{{ fullApiSubSectionTitle }}

Section 5

7

Unabridged API

Section 6

8

{{ afterBodySummary }}

Section 7

  1. The title of the document will be the required key to "rootFileTitle" given to exhale_args in conf.py. See rootFileTitle.

  2. If provided, the value of the key "afterTitleDescription" given to exhale_args will be included. See afterTitleDescription.

  3. The Class Hierarchy will be included next. By default this is a bulleted list; see the Clickable Hierarchies section.

    Note

    This is performed by an .. include:: directive. The file for this section is "{containmentFolder}/class_view_hierarchy.rst".

  4. Next, the File Hierarchy is included. By default this is a bulleted list; see the Clickable Hierarchies section.

    Note

    This is performed by an .. include:: directive. The file for this section is "{containmentFolder}/file_view_hierarchy.rst".

  5. If provided, the value of the key "afterHierarchyDescription" given to exhale_args will be included. See afterHierarchyDescription.

  6. After the Class and File Hierarchies, the unabridged API index is generated. The default title for this section is "Full API", but can be changed using the key "fullApiSubSectionTitle" in exhale_args. See fullApiSubSectionTitle.

  7. After the title or default value for (6), the full API is included. This includes links to things such as defines, functions, typedefs, etc. that are not included in the hierarchies.

    Note

    This is performed by an .. include:: directive. The file for this section is "{containmentFolder}/unabridged_api.rst".

    Tip

    The unabridged_api.rst performs a large number of .. toctree:: directives to link up all of the documents. You can control the number of bullets shown for each section be setting the key "fullToctreeMaxDepth" (e.g. to a smaller number such as 2). See fullToctreeMaxDepth.

    Tip

    Use unabridgedOrphanKinds to exclude entire sections from the full API listing.

  8. If provided, the value of the key "afterBodySummary" will be included at the bottom of the document. See afterBodySummary.

Tip

Where numbers (3), (4), and (7) are concerned, you should be able to happily ignore that an .. include:: is being performed. The URL for the page is strictly determined by what you specified with the required arguments "containmentFolder" and "rootFileName". However, if things are not working as expected it is useful to know where to look. The hierarchies in particular, though, may be challenging to understand if you do not know HTML (or JavaScript) and you are generating the Tree View.

exhale.configs.afterTitleDescription = None
Optional

Provide a description to appear just after rootFileTitle.

Value in exhale_args (str)

If you want to provide a brief summary of say the layout of the API, or call attention to specific classes, functions, etc, use this. For example, if you had Python bindings but no explicit documentation for the Python side of the API, you could use something like

exhale_args = {
    # ... other required arguments...
    "rootFileTitle": "Library API",
    "afterTitleDescription": textwrap.dedent('''
       .. note::

       The following documentation presents the C++ API.  The Python API
       generally mirrors the C++ API, but some methods may not be available in
       Python or may perform different actions.
    ''')
}
exhale.configs.afterHierarchyDescription = None
Optional

Provide a description that appears after the Class and File hierarchies, but before the full (and usually very long) API listing.

Value in exhale_args (str)

Similar to afterTitleDescription, only it is included in the middle of the document.

exhale.configs.fullApiSubSectionTitle = 'Full API'
Optional

The title for the subsection that comes after the Class and File hierarchies, just before the enumeration of the full API.

Value in exhale_args (str)

The default value is simply "Full API". Change this to be something else if you so desire.

exhale.configs.afterBodySummary = None
Optional

Provide a summary to be included at the bottom of the root library file.

Value in exhale_args (str)

Similar to afterTitleDescription, only it is included at the bottom of the document.

Note

The root library document generated can be quite long, depending on your framework. Important notes to developers should be included at the top of the file using afterTitleDescription, or after the hierarchies using afterHierarchyDescription.

exhale.configs.fullToctreeMaxDepth = 5
Optional

The generated library root document performs .. include:: unabridged_api.rst at the bottom, after the Class and File hierarchies. Inside unabridged_api.rst, every generated file is included using a toctree directive to prevent Sphinx from getting upset about documents not being included. This value controls the :maxdepth: for all of these toctree directives.

Value in exhale_args (int)

The default value is 5, but you may want to give a smaller value depending on the framework being documented.

Warning

This value must be greater than or equal to 1. You are advised not to use a value greater than 5.

exhale.configs.listingExclude = []
Optional

A list of regular expressions to exclude from both the class hierarchy and namespace page enumerations. This can be useful when you want to keep the listings for the hierarchy / namespace pages more concise, but do ultimately want the excluded items documented somewhere.

Nodes whose name (fully qualified, e.g., namespace::ClassName) matches any regular expression supplied here will:

  1. Exclude this item from the class view hierarchy listing.

  2. Exclude this item from the defining namespace’s listing (where applicable).

  3. The “excluded” item will still have it’s own documentation and be linked in the “full API listing”, as well as from the file page that defined the compound (if recovered). Otherwise Sphinx will explode with warnings about documents not being included in any toctree directives.

This configuration variable is one size fits all. It was created as a band-aid fix for PIMPL frameworks.

Todo

More fine-grained control will be available in the pickleable writer API sometime in Exhale 1.x.

Note

If you want to skip documentation of a compound in your framework entirely, this configuration variable is not where you do it. See Doxygen PREDEFINED for information on excluding compounds entirely using the doxygen preprocessor.

Value in exhale_args (list)

The list can be of variable types, but each item will be compiled into an internal list using re.compile(). The arguments for re.compile(pattern, flags=0) should be specified in order, but for convenience if no flags are needed for your use case you can just specify a string. For example:

exhale_args = {
    # These two patterns should be equitable for excluding PIMPL
    # objects in a framework that uses the ``XxxImpl`` naming scheme.
    "listingExclude": [r".*Impl$", (r".*impl$", re.IGNORECASE)]
}

Each item in listingExclude may either be a string (the regular expression pattern), or it may be a length two iterable (string pattern, int flags).

exhale.configs.unabridgedOrphanKinds = {'dir', 'file'}
Optional

The list of node kinds to exclude from the unabridged API listing beneath the class and file hierarchies.

Value in exhale_args (list or set of strings)

The list of kinds (see AVAILABLE_KINDS) that will not be included in the unabridged API listing. The default is to exclude directories and files (which are already in the file hierarchy). Note that if this variable is provided, it will overwrite the default {"dir", "file"}, meaning if you want to exclude something in addition you need to include "dir" and "file":

# In conf.py
exhale_args = {
    # Case 1: _only_ exclude union
    "unabridgedOrphanKinds": {"union"}
    # Case 2: exclude union in addition to dir / file.
    "unabridgedOrphanKinds": {"dir", "file", "union"}
}

Tip

See fullToctreeMaxDepth, users seeking to reduce the length of the unabridged API should set this value to 1.

Warning

If either "class" or "struct" appear in unabridgedOrphanKinds then both will be excluded. The unabridged API will present classes and structs together.

Clickable Hierarchies

As stated elsewhere, the primary reason for writing Exhale is to revive the Doxygen Class and File hierarchies. The default behavior of Exhale is to simply insert bulleted lists for these. This was originally because I had hoped to support other Sphinx writers besides HTML, but that ship has pretty much sailed. Now, the reason is primarily because more information is required by the user depending on their HTML theme. Basically

  1. If you are using any theme other than the Sphinx Bootstrap Theme, simply add the argument "createTreeView": True to your exhale_args dictionary in conf.py. This will use the lightweight and surprisingly compatible collapsibleLists library for your clickable hierarchies.

  2. When using either the sphinx-bootstrap-theme, or any other theme that incorporates Bootstrap, you will need to make sure to also set "treeViewIsBootstrap": True in your exhale_args dictionary in conf.py in addition to "createTreeView": True. Exhale will then use the Bootstrap Treeview library to generate your clickable hierarchies.

    Note

    See features available on bootstrap-treeview that you want access to? Add your thoughts on the issue, explaining which feature you would want to be able to control.

    The currently available customizations begin here, but it shouldn’t be too hard to add more.

    Tip

    You will see that many of the color, selection, and search options are not available to be customized for bootstrap-treeview. This is by design. See treeViewBootstrapTextSpanClass, treeViewBootstrapIconMimicColor, and treeViewBootstrapOnhoverColor for your color options. The links are defined by your bootstrap theme’s a tag color.

See the Credit section for information on the licensing of these libraries. Neither library should produce any legal gray areas for you, but I’m not a lawyer.

Todo

add some pictures of the different hierarchies once this is packaged

exhale.configs.createTreeView = False
Optional

When set to True, clickable hierarchies for the Class and File views will be generated. Set this variable to True if you are generating html output for much more attractive websites!

Value in exhale_args (bool)

When set to False, the Class and File hierarches are just reStructuredText bullet lists. This is rather unattractive, but the default of False is to hopefully enable non-html writers to still be able to use exhale.

Tip

Using html_theme = "bootstrap" (the Sphinx Bootstrap Theme)? Make sure you set treeViewIsBootstrap to True!

exhale.configs.minifyTreeView = True
Optional

When set to True, the generated html and/or json for the class and file hierarchy trees will be minified.

Value in exhale_args (bool)

The default value is True, which should help page load times for larger APIs. Setting to False should only really be necessary if there is a problem – the minified version will be hard to parse as a human.

exhale.configs.treeViewIsBootstrap = False
Optional

If the generated html website is using bootstrap, make sure to set this to True. The Bootstrap Treeview library will be used.

Value in exhale_args (bool)

When set to True, the clickable hierarchies will be generated using a Bootstrap friendly library.

exhale.configs.treeViewBootstrapTextSpanClass = 'text-muted'
Optional

What span class to use for the qualifying text after the icon, but before the hyperlink to the actual documentation page. For example, Struct Foo in the hierarchy would have Struct as the qualifying text (controlled by this variable), and Foo will be a hyperlink to Foo’s actual documentation.

Value in exhale_args (str)

A valid class to apply to a span. The actual HTML being generated is something like:

<span class="{span_cls}">{qualifier}</span> {hyperlink text}

So if the value of this input was "text-muted", and it was the hierarchy element for Struct Foo, it would be

<span class="text-muted">Struct</span> Foo

The Foo portion will receive the hyperlink styling elsewhere.

Tip

Easy choices to consider are the contextual classes provided by your bootstrap theme. Alternatively, add your own custom stylesheet to Sphinx directly and create a class with the color you want there.

Danger

No validity checks are performed. If you supply a class that cannot be used, there is no telling what will happen.

exhale.configs.treeViewBootstrapIconMimicColor = 'text-muted'
Optional

The paragraph CSS class to mimic for the icon color in the tree view.

Value in exhale_args (str)

This value must be a valid CSS class for a paragraph. The way that it is used is in JavaScript, on page-load, a “fake paragraph” is inserted with the class specified by this variable. The color is extracted, and then a force-override is applied to the page’s stylesheet. This was necessary to override some aspects of what the bootstrap-treeview library does. It’s full usage looks like this:

/* Inspired by very informative answer to get color of links:
   https://stackoverflow.com/a/2707837/3814202 */
/*                         vvvvvvvvvv what you give */
var $fake_p = $('<p class="icon_mimic"></p>').hide().appendTo("body");
/*                         ^^^^^^^^^^               */
var iconColor = $fake_p.css("color");
$fake_p.remove();

/* later on */
// Part 2: override the style of the glyphicons by injecting some CSS
$('<style type="text/css" id="exhaleTreeviewOverride">' +
  '    .treeview span[class~=icon] { '                  +
  '        color: ' + iconColor + ' ! important;'       +
  '    }'                                               +
  '</style>').appendTo('head');

Tip

Easy choices to consider are the contextual classes provided by your bootstrap theme. Alternatively, add your own custom stylesheet to Sphinx directly and create a class with the color you want there.

Danger

No validity checks are performed. If you supply a class that cannot be used, there is no telling what will happen.

exhale.configs.treeViewBootstrapOnhoverColor = '#F5F5F5'
Optional

The hover color for elements in the hierarchy trees. Default color is a light-grey, as specified by default value of bootstrap-treeview’s onhoverColor.

Value in* exhale_args (str)

Any valid color. See onhoverColor for information.

exhale.configs.treeViewBootstrapUseBadgeTags = True
Optional

When set to True (default), a Badge indicating the number of nested children will be included when 1 or more children are present.

When enabled, each node in the json data generated has it’s tags set, and the global showTags option is set to true.

Value in exhale_args (bool)

Set to False to exclude the badges. Search for Tags as Badges on the example bootstrap treeview page, noting that if a given node does not have any children, no badge will be added. This is simply because a 0 badge is likely more confusing than helpful.

exhale.configs.treeViewBootstrapExpandIcon = 'glyphicon glyphicon-plus'
Optional

Global setting for what the “expand” icon is for the bootstrap treeview. The default value here is the default of the bootstrap-treeview library.

Value in exhale_args (str)

See the expandIcon description of bootstrap-treeview for more information.

Note

Exhale handles wrapping this in quotes, you just need to specify the class (making sure that it has spaces where it should). Exhale does not perform any validity checks on the value of this variable. For example, you could use something like:

exhale_args = {
    # ... required / other optional args ...
    # you can set one, both, or neither. just showing both in same example
    # set the icon to show it can be expanded
    "treeViewBootstrapExpandIcon":   "glyphicon glyphicon-chevron-right",
    # set the icon to show it can be collapsed
    "treeViewBootstrapCollapseIcon": "glyphicon glyphicon-chevron-down"
}
exhale.configs.treeViewBootstrapCollapseIcon = 'glyphicon glyphicon-minus'
Optional

Global setting for what the “collapse” icon is for the bootstrap treeview. The default value here is the default of the bootstrap-treeview library.

Value in exhale_args (str)

See the collapseIcon description of bootstrap-treeview for more information. See treeViewBootstrapExpandIcon for how to specify this CSS class value.

exhale.configs.treeViewBootstrapLevels = 1
Optional

The default number of levels to expand on page load. Note that the bootstrap-treeview default levels value is 2. 1 seems like a safer default for Exhale since the value you choose here largely depends on how you have structured your code.

Value in exhale_args (int)

An integer representing the number of levels to expand for both the Class and File hierarchies. This value should be greater than or equal to 1, but no validity checks are performed on your input. Buyer beware.

exhale.configs._class_hierarchy_id = 'class-treeView'

The id attribute of the HTML element associated with the Class Hierarchy when createTreeView is True.

  1. When treeViewIsBootstrap is False, this id is attached to the outer-most ul.

  2. For bootstrap, an empty div is inserted with this id, which will be the anchor point for the bootstrap-treeview library.

exhale.configs._file_hierarchy_id = 'file-treeView'

The id attribute of the HTML element associated with the Class Hierarchy when createTreeView is True.

  1. When treeViewIsBootstrap is False, this id is attached to the outer-most ul.

  2. For bootstrap, an empty div is inserted with this id, which will be the anchor point for the bootstrap-treeview library.

exhale.configs._bstrap_class_hierarchy_fn_data_name = 'getClassHierarchyTree'

The name of the JavaScript function that returns the json data associated with the Class Hierarchy when createTreeView is True and treeViewIsBootstrap is True.

exhale.configs._bstrap_file_hierarchy_fn_data_name = 'getFileHierarchyTree'

The name of the JavaScript function that returns the json data associated with the File Hierarchy when createTreeView is True and treeViewIsBootstrap is True.

Page Level Customization

Each page generated for a given “leaf-like” node (classes, structs, functions) will look something like this, where special treatment is given to File pages specifically:

{{ pageLevelConfigMeta }}

Meta

{{ Node Title }}

Heading

1

Definition {{ link to file or program listing }}

Section 1

2

{{ contentsDirectives }}

{{ Kind Specific Exhale Links }}

Section 2

{{ Breathe Directive }}

Section 3

Meta

The page-level metadata is controlled by pageLevelConfigMeta. It is only included if provided.

Heading

The internal reStructuredText link and page heading are included. These are determined by the ExhaleNode object’s link_name and title members, respectively.

Section 1
File Pages
  1. If using Exhale to generate Doxygen on STDIN, the XML_PROGRAMLISTING Doxygen variable is set to YES, and an associated program listing page is generated for each file and linked to here.

    Tip

    The value of doxygenStripFromPath directly affects what path is displayed here.

    Danger

    If you override XML_PROGRAMLISTING = NO (or do not explicitly set it to YES if using alternative Doxygen generation methods), significantly more than just whether or not the program listing document is generated is affected. There are numerous graph relationships that Exhale cannot recover without the xml program listing.

  2. See the Using Contents Directives section.

For File pages, the brief description of the File (if provided) is included in Section 1 underneath the title. See File and Namespace Level Documentation in Exhale

Other Pages
  1. Assuming Exhale was able to infer which file defined a given node, a link to the file page that defined it is included here.

  2. See the Using Contents Directives section.

For Namespace pages, the brief description of the Namespace (if provided) is included in Section 1 underneath the title. See File and Namespace Level Documentation in Exhale.

Section 2
File Pages

At the beginning of section 2, the detailed description of the file is included if provided.

Afterward, an enumeration of the files that this file #include s, as well as files that #include this file, is presented next. Afterward, an enumeration by kind (namespaces, classes, functions, etc) that were defined in this file are included.

Other Pages

For many pages, section 2 will be blank.

Classes and Structs

Links to any nested classes (of this type, or the containing class if this is a nested type) are included. Afterward, links to any base or derived classes are included.

If includeTemplateParamOrderList is True, the template parameter list enumeration is included next.

Namespaces

Namespaces will include an enumeration of everything that was determined to be a member of this namespace, listed by kind. So things like nested namespaces, classes and structs, functions, etc.

Section 3
File Pages

If Exhale is producing unexpected output for file level documentation, you can set generateBreatheFileDirectives to True as a debugging feature.

Please refer to the Doxygen Documentation Specifics section for potential causes, in particular the subsection describing File and Namespace Level Documentation in Exhale.

Namespaces

No Breathe directives for namespaces are used, as they will cause the same problems that the file directives do.

Please refer to the File and Namespace Level Documentation in Exhale section.

Other Pages

For all other pages (except for directories, which simply link to subdirectories and files in that directory), this is where the Breathe directive is inserted.

Tip

See the Customizing Breathe Output section for how you can modify this section of a given document.

exhale.configs.includeTemplateParamOrderList = False
Optional

For Classes and Structs (only), Exhale can provide a numbered list enumeration displaying the template parameters in the order they should be specified.

Value in exhale_args (bool)

This feature can be useful when you have template classes that have many template parameters. The Breathe directives will include the parameters in the order they should be given. However, if you have a template class with more than say 5 parameters, it can become a little hard to read.

Note

This configuration is all or nothing, and applies to every template Class / Struct. Additionally, no tparam documentation is displayed with this listing. Just the types / names they are declared as (and default values if provided).

This feature really only exists as a historical accident.

Warning

As a consequence of the (hacky) implementation, if you use this feature you commit to HTML output only. Where applicable, template parameters that generate links to other items being documented only work in HTML.

exhale.configs.pageLevelConfigMeta = None
Optional

reStructuredText allows you to employ page-level configurations. These are included at the top of the page, before the title.

Value in exhale_args (str)

An example of one such feature would be ":tocdepth: 5". To be honest, I’m not sure why you would need this feature. But it’s easy to implement, you just need to make sure that you provide valid reStructuredText or every page will produce errors.

See the Field Lists guide for more information.

exhale.configs.repoRedirectURL = None

Todo

This feature is NOT implemented yet! Hopefully soon. It definitely gets under my skin. It’s mostly documented just to show up in the todolist for me ;)

Optional

When using the Sphinx RTD theme, there is a button placed in the top-right saying something like “Edit this on GitHub”. Since the documents are all being generated dynamically (and not supposed to be tracked by git), the links all go nowhere. Set this so Exhale can try and fix this.

Value in exhale_args (str)

The url of the repository your documentation is being generated from.

Warning

Seriously this isn’t implemented. I may not even need this from you. The harder part is figuring out how to map a given nodes “def_in_file” to the correct URL. I should be able to get the URL from git remote and construct the URL from that and git branch. Probably just some path hacking with git rev-parse --show-toplevel and comparing that to doxygenStripFromPath?

Please feel free to add your input here.

Using Contents Directives

Note

I put a lot of thought into the defaults for the .. contents:: directive. I believe the chosen defaults are optimal, but this is very much a personal decision. It also depends a lot on what html_theme you are using in conf.py. For example, the sphinx_rtd_theme (while classy) leaves a lot to the imagination where page-level navigation is concerned (and the page is long).

The Contents Directive can be used to display the table of contents on an individual reStructuredText page. This is different than the toctree directive in that it is not specifying a list of documents to include next, it is simply informing the reStructuredText parser (Sphinx in our case) that you would like a table of contents displayed where this directive appears.

By default, Exhale includes a .. contents:: directive on all File and Namespace pages. This is particularly useful for making the Namespace and File pages navigable by the reader of your documentation when the Namespace / File incorporates many parts of the API. Classes and structs have potential for a contents directive to be warranted (e.g., complex inheritance relationships with nested types, core base types that every class in the API inherits from). If you have particular Classes or Structs that warrant a .. contents:: directive, you can enable this. However, at this time, this is a global setting for Exhale — either all have it or none have it. That said, the presence of a .. contents:: directive on simple class / struct pages doesn’t seem to be too distracting.

On the other hand, pages generated for things like Directories, Enums, Variables, Defines, Typedefs, etc, are generally only as long as the documentation so they do not receive a .. contents:: directive by default.

The way Exhale is setup is to coordinate four variables:

  1. contentsDirectives sets globally whether or not any .. contents:: directives are generated.

  2. contentsTitle determines the title of these directives. The default is the reStructuredText default: Contents.

  3. contentsSpecifiers provides the specifications to apply to the .. contents:: directives. For stylistic reasons, the specifiers Exhale defaults to are :local: and :backlinks: none.

  4. kindsWithContentsDirectives specifies the kinds of compounds that will include a .. contents:: directive. The default is to only generate these for namespace and file.

The implementation, if interested, is in contentsDirectiveOrNone(). Assuming you use all of the Exhale defaults, then every Namespace and File document will include a directive like this:

.. contents:: Contents
   :local:
   :backlinks: none

These defaults basically have two implications:

The Effect of :local: on the Title

The :local: option states to only include the table of contents for the remainder of the page. For Exhale, this means do not include the title of the page.

When using :local:, the title must be explicitly specified. So if you set contentsTitle to the empty string (keeping all other defaults), the directive generated would be

.. contents::
   :local:
   :backlinks: none

which results in a table of contents, without the word Contents before it. This is likely a personal preference.

The Effect of :backlinks:

Traditional usage of a .. contents:: directive, when :backlinks: is not explicitly specified, is to create circular links. When considering writing a long document with many sections and subsections, this is exceptionally convenient.

This means that when you click on a link in the generated table of contents, it takes you to the heading for that section. The heading is also a hyperlink, which when clicked takes you back to the table of contents.

I find this to be awkward for Exhale for two reasons:

  1. Section titles as hyperlinks, especially with Bootstrap, are quite unattractive.

  2. The circular linking is not exactly intuitive for code documentation.

Alas these are things that very much depend on your personal preferences, so I’ve done my best to enable as much flexibility as possible.

exhale.configs.contentsDirectives = True
Optional

Include a .. contents:: directive beneath the title on pages that have potential to link to a decent number of documents.

Value in exhale_args (bool)

By default, Exhale will include a .. contents:: directive on the individual generated pages for the types specified by kindsWithContentsDirectives. Set this to False to disable globally.

See the Using Contents Directives section for all pieces of the puzzle.

exhale.configs.contentsTitle = 'Contents'
Optional

The title of the .. contents:: directive for an individual file page, when it’s kind is in the list specified by kindsWithContentsDirectives and contentsDirectives is True.

Value in exhale_args (str)

The default (for both Exhale and reStructuredText) is to label this as Contents. You can choose whatever value you like. If you prefer to have no title for the .. contents:: directives, specify the empty string.

Note

Specifying the empty string only removes the title when ":local:" is present in contentsSpecifiers. See the Using Contents Directives section for more information.

exhale.configs.contentsSpecifiers = [':local:', ':backlinks: none']
Optional

The specifications to apply to .. contents:: directives for the individual file pages when it’s kind is in the list specified by kindsWithContentsDirectives and contentsDirectives is True.

Value in exhale_args (list)

A (one-dimensional) list of strings that will be applied to any .. contents:: directives generated. Provide the empty list if you wish to have no specifiers added to these directives. See the Using Contents Directives section for more information.

exhale.configs.kindsWithContentsDirectives = ['file', 'namespace']
Optional

The kinds of compounds that will include a .. contents:: directive on their individual library page. The default is to generate one for Files and Namespaces. Only takes meaning when contentsDirectives is True.

Value in exhale_args (list)

Provide a (one-dimensional) list or tuple of strings of the kinds of compounds that should include a .. contents:: directive. Each kind given must one of the entries in AVAILABLE_KINDS.

For example, if you wanted to enable Structs and Classes as well you would do something like:

# in conf.py
exhale_args = {
    # ... required / optional args ...
    "kindsWithContentsDirectives": ["file", "namespace", "class", "struct"]
}

Note

This is a “full override”. So if you want to still keep the defaults of "file" and "namespace", you must include them yourself.

Breathe Customization

The directives for generating the documentation for a given node come from Breathe. Exhale uses the Breathe defaults for all directives, except for Classes and Structs. Suppose you are documenting a class namespace::ClassName. Exhale will produce the following directive:

.. doxygenclass:: namespace::ClassName
   :members:
   :protected-members:
   :undoc-members:

where the defaults being overridden are to include :protected-members: as well as :undoc-members:. You may, for example, want to also include :private-members: in your documentation, or override the default settings for other Breathe directives to control what is displayed.

In order to override these settings, a layer of indirection has to be added. Because Exhale is a Sphinx Extension, it needs to be possible to do something called “Pickle”. The short version of what this means is that you cannot give me a function directly to call, because the Python function object cannot be pickled. The solution is to use the wrapper function I have created that takes your input function and stores all possible inputs and outputs in a dictionary. Details aside, it’s easier than it sounds.

  1. Define your custom specifications function in conf.py. In this example we’ll be changing the specifications for the class, struct, and enum directives, and use the Breathe defaults for everything else:

    # somewhere in `conf.py`, *BERORE* declaring `exhale_args`
    def specificationsForKind(kind):
        '''
        For a given input ``kind``, return the list of reStructuredText specifications
        for the associated Breathe directive.
        '''
        # Change the defaults for .. doxygenclass:: and .. doxygenstruct::
        if kind == "class" or kind == "struct":
            return [
              ":members:",
              ":protected-members:",
              ":private-members:",
              ":undoc-members:"
            ]
        # Change the defaults for .. doxygenenum::
        elif kind == "enum":
            return [":no-link:"]
        # An empty list signals to Exhale to use the defaults
        else:
            return []
    

    Tip

    The full list of inputs your function will be called with are defined by AVAILABLE_KINDS.

  2. Use Exhale’s utility function to create the correct dictionary. Below that function you can now do

    # Use exhale's utility function to transform `specificationsForKind`
    # defined above into something Exhale can use
    from exhale import utils
    exhale_args = {
        # ... required arguments / other configs ...
        "customSpecificationsMapping": utils.makeCustomSpecificationsMapping(
            specificationsForKind
        )
    }
    

    Note

    The parameter to makeCustomSpecificationsMapping() is the function itself.

exhale.configs.customSpecificationsMapping = None
Optional

See the Customizing Breathe Output section for how to use this.

Value in exhale_args (dict)

The dictionary produced by calling makeCustomSpecificationsMapping() with your custom function.

exhale.configs._closure_map_sanity_check = 'blargh_BLARGH_blargh'

See makeCustomSpecificationsMapping() implementation, this is inserted to help enforce that Exhale made the dictionary going into customSpecificationsMapping.

Doxygen Execution and Customization

To have Exhale launch Doxygen when you run make html, you will need to set exhaleExecutesDoxygen to True. After setting that, you will need to choose how Exhale is executing Doxygen. If you already know what you are doing, continue on. If you’ve never used Doxygen before, skim this, but refer to the Mastering Doxygen for more information on areas that you may get confused by.

Suggested Approach

Provide a (multiline) string to exhaleDoxygenStdin. In the Quickstart Guide, the bare minimum needed to get things off the ground was used: INPUT must be set to tell Doxygen where to look.

Tip

If you set verboseBuild to True, Exhale will print out exactly what it sends to Doxygen.

Presumably just specifying INPUT will not be enough, particularly if the Doxygen preprocessor is not understanding your code. Exhale uses a number of defaults to send to Doxygen as specified by DEFAULT_DOXYGEN_STDIN_BASE. The way these are used with your argument are as follows:

# doxy_dir is the parent directory of what you specified in
# `breathe_projects[breathe_default_project]` in `conf.py`
internal_configs = textwrap.dedent('''
    # Tell doxygen to output wherever breathe is expecting things
    OUTPUT_DIRECTORY       = {out}
    # Tell doxygen to strip the path names (RTD builds produce long abs paths...)
    STRIP_FROM_PATH        = {strip}
'''.format(out=doxy_dir, strip=configs.doxygenStripFromPath))

# The configurations you specified
external_configs = textwrap.dedent(configs.exhaleDoxygenStdin)

# The full input being sent
full_input = "{base}\n{external}\n{internal}\n\n".format(
    base=configs.DEFAULT_DOXYGEN_STDIN_BASE,
    external=external_configs,
    internal=internal_configs
)

In words, first the Exhale defaults are sent in. Then your configurations, allowing you to override anything you need. Last, the output directory and strip from path (specified elsewhere) are sent in.

The error checking and warning logic seems pretty robust. For example, suppose you need to add to the PREDEFINED to add a definition. If you did something like

import textwrap
exhale_args = {
    # ... required args ...
    "exhaleExecutesDoxygen": True,
    "exhaleDoxygenStdin": textwrap.dedent('''
        INPUT      = ../include
        # Using `=` instead of `+=` overrides
        PREDEFINED = FOO="12"
    ''')
}

This will override the PREDEFINED section in the default configurations. Exhale will produce a warning encouraging you to +=, but still continue.

Using a Doxyfile

If you have your own customized Doxyfile, just make sure it is in the same directory as conf.py. See the documentation for exhaleUseDoxyfile for items you need to make sure agree with the configurations you have applied elsewhere to Breathe / Exhale.

exhale.configs._doxygen_xml_output_directory = None

The absolute path the the root level of the doxygen xml output. If the path to the index.xml file created by doxygen was ./doxyoutput/xml/index.xml, then this would simply be ./doxyoutput/xml.

Note

This is the exact same path as breathe_projects[breathe_default_project], only it is an absolute path.

exhale.configs.exhaleExecutesDoxygen = False
Optional

Have Exhale launch Doxygen when you execute make html.

Value in exhale_args (bool)

Set to True to enable launching Doxygen. You must set either exhaleUseDoxyfile or exhaleDoxygenStdin.

exhale.configs.exhaleUseDoxyfile = False
Optional

If exhaleExecutesDoxygen is True, this tells Exhale to use your own Doxyfile. The encouraged approach is to use exhaleDoxygenStdin.

Value in exhale_args (bool)

Set to True to have Exhale use your Doxyfile.

Note

The Doxyfile must be in the same directory as conf.py. Exhale will change directories to here before launching Doxygen when you have separate source and build directories for Sphinx configured.

Warning

No sanity checks on the Doxyfile are performed. If you are using this option you need to verify two parameters in particular:

  1. OUTPUT_DIRECTORY is configured so that breathe_projects[breathe_default_project] agrees. See the Mapping of Project Names to Doxygen XML Output Paths section.

  2. STRIP_FROM_PATH is configured to be identical to what is specified with doxygenStripFromPath.

I have no idea what happens when these conflict, but it likely will never result in valid documentation.

exhale.configs.exhaleDoxygenStdin = None
Optional

If exhaleExecutesDoxygen is True, this tells Exhale to use the (multiline string) value specified in this argument in addition to the DEFAULT_DOXYGEN_STDIN_BASE.

Value in exhale_args (str)

This string describes your project’s specific Doxygen configurations. At the very least, it must provide INPUT. See the Using Exhale to Execute Doxygen section for how to use this in conjunction with the default configurations, as well as how to override them.

exhale.configs.DEFAULT_DOXYGEN_STDIN_BASE = '\n# If you need this to be YES, exhale will probably break.\nCREATE_SUBDIRS = NO\n# So that only Doxygen does not trim paths, which affects the File hierarchy\nFULL_PATH_NAMES = YES\n# Nested folders will be ignored without this. You may not need it.\nRECURSIVE = YES\n# Set to YES if you are debugging or want to compare.\nGENERATE_HTML = NO\n# Unless you want it...\nGENERATE_LATEX = NO\n# Both breathe and exhale need the xml.\nGENERATE_XML = YES\n# Set to NO if you do not want the Doxygen program listing included.\nXML_PROGRAMLISTING = YES\n# Allow for rst directives and advanced functions e.g. grid tables\nALIASES = "rst=\\verbatim embed:rst:leading-asterisk"\nALIASES += "endrst=\\endverbatim"\n# Enable preprocessing and related preprocessor necessities\nENABLE_PREPROCESSING = YES\nMACRO_EXPANSION = YES\nEXPAND_ONLY_PREDEF = NO\nSKIP_FUNCTION_MACROS = NO\n# extra defs for to help with building the _right_ version of the docs\nPREDEFINED = DOXYGEN_DOCUMENTATION_BUILD\nPREDEFINED += DOXYGEN_SHOULD_SKIP_THIS\n'

These are the default values sent to Doxygen along stdin when exhaleExecutesDoxygen is True. This is sent to Doxygen immediately before the exhaleDoxygenStdin provided to exhale_args in your conf.py. In this way, you can override any of the specific defaults shown here.

Tip

See the documentation for exhaleDoxygenStdin, as well as exhaleUseDoxyfile. Only one may be provided to the exhale_args in your conf.py.

The value of this variable is a multiline string with contents:

# If you need this to be YES, exhale will probably break.
CREATE_SUBDIRS         = NO
# So that only Doxygen does not trim paths, which affects the File hierarchy
FULL_PATH_NAMES        = YES
# Nested folders will be ignored without this.  You may not need it.
RECURSIVE              = YES
# Set to YES if you are debugging or want to compare.
GENERATE_HTML          = NO
# Unless you want it...
GENERATE_LATEX         = NO
# Both breathe and exhale need the xml.
GENERATE_XML           = YES
# Set to NO if you do not want the Doxygen program listing included.
XML_PROGRAMLISTING     = YES
# Allow for rst directives and advanced functions e.g. grid tables
ALIASES                = "rst=\verbatim embed:rst:leading-asterisk"
ALIASES               += "endrst=\endverbatim"
# Enable preprocessing and related preprocessor necessities
ENABLE_PREPROCESSING   = YES
MACRO_EXPANSION        = YES
EXPAND_ONLY_PREDEF     = NO
SKIP_FUNCTION_MACROS   = NO
# extra defs for to help with building the _right_ version of the docs
PREDEFINED             = DOXYGEN_DOCUMENTATION_BUILD
PREDEFINED            += DOXYGEN_SHOULD_SKIP_THIS

Note

The above value is presented for readability, when using this variable take note of any leading or trailing \n characters.

exhale.configs.exhaleSilentDoxygen = False
Optional

When set to True, the Doxygen output is omitted from the build.

Value in exhale_args (bool)

Documentation generation can be quite verbose, especially when running both Sphinx and Doxygen in the same process. Use this to silence Doxygen.

Danger

You are heavily discouraged from setting this to True. Many problems that may arise through either Exhale or Breathe are because the Doxygen documentation itself has errors. It will be much more difficult to find these when you squelch the Doxygen output.

The reason you would do this is for actual limitations on your specific stdout (e.g. you are getting a buffer maxed out). The likelihood of this being a problem for you is exceptionally small.

Programlisting Customization

exhale.configs.lexerMapping = {}
Optional

When specified, and XML_PROGRAMLISTING is set to YES in Doxygen (either via your Doxyfile or exhaleDoxygenStdin), this mapping can be used to customize / correct the Pygments lexer used for the program listing page generated for files. Most projects will not need to use this setting.

Value in exhale_args (dict)

The keys and values are both strings. Each key is a regular expression that will be used to check with re.match(), noting that the primary difference between re.match() and re.search() that you should be aware of is that match searches from the beginning of the string. Each value should be a valid Pygments lexer.

Example usage:

exhale_args {
    # ...
    "lexerMapping": {
        r".*\.cuh": "cuda",
        r"path/to/exact_filename\.ext": "c"
    }
}

Note

The pattern is used to search the full path of a file, as represented in Doxygen. This is so that duplicate file names in separate folders can be distinguished if needed. The file path as represented in Doxygen is defined by the path to the file, with some prefix stripped out. The prefix stripped out depends entirely on what you provided to doxygenStripFromPath.

Tip

This mapping is used in utils.doxygenLanguageToPygmentsLexer, when provided it is queried first. If you are trying to get program listings for a file that is otherwise not supported directly by Doxygen, you typically want to tell Doxygen to interpret the file as a different language. Take the CUDA case. In my input to exhaleDoxygenStdin, I will want to set both FILE_PATTERNS and append to EXTENSION_MAPPING:

FILE_PATTERNS          = *.hpp *.cuh
EXTENSION_MAPPING     += cuh=c++

By setting FILE_PATTERNS, Doxygen will now try and process *.cuh files. By appending to EXTENSION_MAPPING, it will treat *.cuh as C++ files. For CUDA, this is a reasonable choice because Doxygen is generally able to parse the file as C++ and get everything right in terms of member definitions, docstrings, etc. However, now the XML generated by doxygen looks like this:

<!-- >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> vvv -->
<compounddef id="bilateral__filter_8cuh" kind="file" language="C++">

So Exhale would be default put the program listing in a .. code-block:: cpp. By setting this variable in exhale_args, you can bypass this and get the desired lexer of your choice.

Some important notes for those not particularly comfortable or familiar with regular expressions in python:

  1. Note that each key defines a raw string (prefix with r): r"pattern". This is not entirely necessary for this case, but using raw strings makes it so that you do not have to escape as many things. It’s a good practice to adopt, but for these purposes should not matter all that much.

  2. Note the escaped . character. This means find the literal ., rather than the regular expression wildcard for any character. Observe the difference with and without:

    >>> import re
    >>> if re.match(r".*.cuh", "some_filecuh.hpp"): print("Oops!")
    ...
    Oops!
    >>> if re.match(r".*\.cuh", "some_filecuh.hpp"): print("Oops!")
    ...
    >>>
    

    Without \., the .cuh matches ecuh since . is a wildcard for any character. You may also want to use $ at the end of the expression if there are multiple file extensions involved: r".*\.cuh$". The $ states “end-of-pattern”, which in the usage of Exhale means end of line (the compiled regular expressions are not compiled with re.MULTILINE).

  3. Take special care at the beginning of your regular expression. The pattern r"*\.cuh" does not compile! You need to use r".*\.cuh", with the leading . being required.

exhale.configs._compiled_lexer_mapping = {}

Internal mapping of compiled regular expression objects to Pygments lexer strings. This dictionary is created by compiling every key in lexerMapping. See implementation of utils.doxygenLanguageToPygmentsLexer for usage.

Utility Variables

exhale.configs.SECTION_HEADING_CHAR = '='

The restructured text H1 heading character used to underline sections.

exhale.configs.SUB_SECTION_HEADING_CHAR = '-'

The restructured text H2 heading character used to underline subsections.

exhale.configs.SUB_SUB_SECTION_HEADING_CHAR = '*'

The restructured text H3 heading character used to underline sub-subsections.

exhale.configs.MAXIMUM_FILENAME_LENGTH = 255

When a potential filename is longer than 255, a sha1 sum is used to shorten. Note that there is no ubiquitous and reliable way to query this information, as it depends on both the operating system, filesystem, and even the location (directory path) the file would be generated to (depending on the filesystem). As such, a conservative value of 255 should guarantee that the desired filename can always be created.

exhale.configs.MAXIMUM_WINDOWS_PATH_LENGTH = 260

The file path length on Windows cannot be greater than or equal to 260 characters.

Since Windows’ pathetically antiquated filesystem cannot handle this, they have enabled a “magic” prefix they call an extended-length path. This is achieved by inserting the prefix \\?\ which allows you to go up to a maximum path of 32,767 characters but you may only do this for absolute paths. See Maximum Path Length Limitation for more information.

Dear Windows, did you know it is the 21st century?

exhale.configs._the_app = None

The Sphinx app object. Currently unused, saved for availability in future.

exhale.configs._app_src_dir = None

Do not modify. The location of app.srcdir of the Sphinx application, once the build process has begun to execute. Saved to be able to run a few different sanity checks in different places.

exhale.configs._on_rtd = True

Do not modify. Signals whether or not the build is taking place on ReadTheDocs. If it is, then colorization of output is disabled, as well as the Doxygen output (where applicable) is directed to /dev/null as capturing it can cause the subprocess buffers to overflow.

Secondary Sphinx Entry Point

exhale.configs.apply_sphinx_configurations(app)[source]

This method applies the various configurations users place in their conf.py, in the dictionary exhale_args. The error checking seems to be robust, and borderline obsessive, but there may very well be some glaring flaws.

When the user requests for the treeView to be created, this method is also responsible for adding the various CSS / JavaScript to the Sphinx Application to support the hierarchical views.

Danger

This method is not supposed to be called directly. See exhale/__init__.py for how this function is called indirectly via the Sphinx API.

Parameters
app (sphinx.application.Sphinx)

The Sphinx Application running the documentation build.