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# The WebSupport Class

class `sphinx.websupport.``WebSupport`

  The main API class for the web support package. All interactions with the web support package should occur through this class.

  The class takes the following keyword arguments:

  srcdir
    The directory containing reStructuredText source files.
  builddir
    The directory that build data and static files should be placed in. This should be used when creating a `WebSupport` object that will be used to build data.
  datadir
    The directory that the web support data is in. This should be used when creating a `WebSupport` object that will be used to retrieve data.
  search
    This may contain either a string (e.g. ‘xapian’) referencing a built-in search adapter to use, or an instance of a subclass of `BaseSearch`.
  storage
    This may contain either a string representing a database uri, or an instance of a subclass of `StorageBackend`. If this is not provided, a new sqlite database will be created.
  moderation_callback
    A callable to be called when a new comment is added that is not displayed. It must accept one argument: a dictionary representing the comment that was added.
  staticdir
    If static files are served from a location besides `'/static'`, this should be a string with the name of that location (e.g. `'/static_files'`).
  docroot
    If the documentation is not served from the base path of a URL, this should be a string specifying that path (e.g. `'docs'`).

## Methods

`WebSupport.``build`()

  Build the documentation. Places the data into the outdir directory. Use it like this:

      support = WebSupport(srcdir, builddir, search='xapian')
      support.build()

  This will read reStructured text files from srcdir. Then it will build the pickles and search index, placing them into builddir. It will also save node data to the database.

`WebSupport.``get_document`(docname, username='', moderator=False)

  Load and return a document from a pickle. The document will be a dict object which can be used to render a template:

      support = WebSupport(datadir=datadir)
      support.get_document('index', username, moderator)

  In most cases docname will be taken from the request path and passed directly to this function. In Flask, that would be something like this:

      @app.route('/<path:docname>')
      def index(docname):
          username = g.user.name if g.user else ''
          moderator = g.user.moderator if g.user else False
          try:
              document = support.get_document(docname, username,
                                              moderator)
          except DocumentNotFoundError:
              abort(404)
          render_template('doc.html', document=document)

  The document dict that is returned contains the following items to be used during template rendering.

  - body: The main body of the document as HTML
  - sidebar: The sidebar of the document as HTML
  - relbar: A div containing links to related documents
  - title: The title of the document
  - css: Links to css files used by Sphinx
  - script: Javascript containing comment options

  This raises `DocumentNotFoundError` if a document matching docname is not found.

  Parameters: | docname – the name of the document to load.

`WebSupport.``get_data`(node_id, username=None, moderator=False)

  Get the comments and source associated with node_id. If username is given vote information will be included with the returned comments. The default CommentBackend returns a dict with two keys, source, and comments. source is raw source of the node and is used as the starting point for proposals a user can add. comments is a list of dicts that represent a comment, each having the following items:

  Key | Contents
  --- | ---
  text | The comment text.
  username | The username that was stored with the comment.
  id | The comment’s unique identifier.
  rating | The comment’s current rating.
  age | The time in seconds since the comment was added.
  time | A dict containing time information. It contains the following keys: year, month, day, hour, minute, second, iso, and delta. iso is the time formatted in ISO 8601 format. delta is a printable form of how old the comment is (e.g. “3 hours ago”).
  vote | If user_id was given, this will be an integer representing the vote. 1 for an upvote, -1 for a downvote, or 0 if unvoted.
  node | The id of the node that the comment is attached to. If the comment’s parent is another comment rather than a node, this will be null.
  parent | The id of the comment that this comment is attached to if it is not attached to a node.
  children | A list of all children, in this format.
  proposal_diff | An HTML representation of the differences between the the current source and the user’s proposed source.

  Parameters:

  - node_id – the id of the node to get comments for.
  - username – the username of the user viewing the comments.
  - moderator – whether the user is a moderator.

`WebSupport.``add_comment`(text, node_id='', parent_id='', displayed=True, username=None, time=None, proposal=None, moderator=False)

  Add a comment to a node or another comment. Returns the comment in the same format as `get_comments()`. If the comment is being attached to a node, pass in the node’s id (as a string) with the node keyword argument:

      comment = support.add_comment(text, node_id=node_id)

  If the comment is the child of another comment, provide the parent’s id (as a string) with the parent keyword argument:

      comment = support.add_comment(text, parent_id=parent_id)

  If you would like to store a username with the comment, pass in the optional username keyword argument:

      comment = support.add_comment(text, node=node_id,
                                    username=username)

  Parameters:

  - parent_id – the prefixed id of the comment’s parent.
  - text – the text of the comment.
  - displayed – for moderation purposes
  - username – the username of the user making the comment.
  - time – the time the comment was created, defaults to now.

`WebSupport.``process_vote`(comment_id, username, value)

  Process a user’s vote. The web support package relies on the API user to perform authentication. The API user will typically receive a comment_id and value from a form, and then make sure the user is authenticated. A unique username must be passed in, which will also be used to retrieve the user’s past voting data. An example, once again in Flask:

      @app.route('/docs/process_vote', methods=['POST'])
      def process_vote():
          if g.user is None:
              abort(401)
          comment_id = request.form.get('comment_id')
          value = request.form.get('value')
          if value is None or comment_id is None:
              abort(400)
          support.process_vote(comment_id, g.user.name, value)
          return "success"

  Parameters:

  - comment_id – the comment being voted on
  - username – the unique username of the user voting
  - value – 1 for an upvote, -1 for a downvote, 0 for an unvote.

`WebSupport.``get_search_results`(q)

  Perform a search for the query q, and create a set of search results. Then render the search results as html and return a context dict like the one created by `get_document()`:

      document = support.get_search_results(q)

  Parameters: | q – the search query