
Invocation of sphinx-build
**************************

The **sphinx-build** script builds a Sphinx documentation set.  It is
called like this:

   $ sphinx-build [options] sourcedir builddir [filenames]

where *sourcedir* is the *source directory*, and *builddir* is the
directory in which you want to place the built documentation.  Most of
the time, you don't need to specify any *filenames*.

The **sphinx-build** script has several options:

-b buildername

   The most important option: it selects a builder.  The most common
   builders are:

   **html**
      Build HTML pages.  This is the default builder.

   **dirhtml**
      Build HTML pages, but with a single directory per document.
      Makes for prettier URLs (no ``.html``) if served from a
      webserver.

   **singlehtml**
      Build a single HTML with the whole content.

   **htmlhelp**, **qthelp**, **devhelp**, **epub**
      Build HTML files with additional information for building a
      documentation collection in one of these formats.

   **latex**
      Build LaTeX sources that can be compiled to a PDF document using
      **pdflatex**.

   **man**
      Build manual pages in groff format for UNIX systems.

   **text**
      Build plain text files.

   **doctest**
      Run all doctests in the documentation, if the ``doctest``
      extension is enabled.

   **linkcheck**
      Check the integrity of all external links.

   See *Available builders* for a list of all builders shipped with
   Sphinx. Extensions can add their own builders.

-a

   If given, always write all output files.  The default is to only
   write output files for new and changed source files.  (This may not
   apply to all builders.)

-E

   Don't use a saved *environment* (the structure caching all cross-
   references), but rebuild it completely.  The default is to only
   read and parse source files that are new or have changed since the
   last run.

-t tag

   Define the tag *tag*.  This is relevant for ``only`` directives
   that only include their content if this tag is set.

   New in version 0.6.

-d path

   Since Sphinx has to read and parse all source files before it can
   write an output file, the parsed source files are cached as
   "doctree pickles". Normally, these files are put in a directory
   called ``.doctrees`` under the build directory; with this option
   you can select a different cache directory (the doctrees can be
   shared between all builders).

-c path

   Don't look for the ``conf.py`` in the source directory, but use the
   given configuration directory instead.  Note that various other
   files and paths given by configuration values are expected to be
   relative to the configuration directory, so they will have to be
   present at this location too.

   New in version 0.3.

-C

   Don't look for a configuration file; only take options via the
   ``-D`` option.

   New in version 0.5.

-D setting=value

   Override a configuration value set in the ``conf.py`` file.  The
   value must be a string or dictionary value.  For the latter, supply
   the setting name and key like this: ``-D
   latex_elements.docclass=scrartcl``.  For boolean values, use ``0``
   or ``1`` as the value.

   Changed in version 0.6: The value can now be a dictionary value.

-A name=value

   Make the *name* assigned to *value* in the HTML templates.

   New in version 0.5.

-n

   Run in nit-picky mode.  Currently, this generates warnings for all
   missing references.

-N

   Do not emit colored output.  (On Windows, colored output is
   disabled in any case.)

-q

   Do not output anything on standard output, only write warnings and
   errors to standard error.

-Q

   Do not output anything on standard output, also suppress warnings.
   Only errors are written to standard error.

-w file

   Write warnings (and errors) to the given file, in addition to
   standard error.

-W

   Turn warnings into errors.  This means that the build stops at the
   first warning and ``sphinx-build`` exits with exit status 1.

-P

   (Useful for debugging only.)  Run the Python debugger, ``pdb``, if
   an unhandled exception occurs while building.

You can also give one or more filenames on the command line after the
source and build directories.  Sphinx will then try to build only
these output files (and their dependencies).


Makefile options
================

The ``Makefile`` and ``make.bat`` files created by **sphinx-
quickstart** usually run **sphinx-build** only with the *-b* and *-d*
options.  However, they support the following variables to customize
behavior:

PAPER

   The value for ``latex_paper_size``.

SPHINXBUILD

   The command to use instead of ``sphinx-build``.

BUILDDIR

   The build directory to use instead of the one chosen in **sphinx-
   quickstart**.

SPHINXOPTS

   Additional options for **sphinx-build**.
