Paragraphs

段落是reST文档中最基本的部分。段落是被一行或多行空格分隔的文本块。和Python一样， reST中缩进格式是有意义的，同一段落的每一行必须按同一缩进格式左对齐。

Inline markup

标准的reST的行内标记（inline markup）非常简单：使用

• 单星号: *text* 来强调(斜体),

• 双星号: **text** 来更一步强调(粗体), and

• 反引号: ``text`` 来做代码的示例。

如果星号和反引号同时出现并可能混淆时就可以使用反斜杠来转义。

注意下面这些标记限制：

• 不能嵌套使用,

• 内容的前后都不能包含空格: * text* 是错误的,

• 必须和周围的文本用non-word字符分隔开来。使用反斜杠来转义空格字符： thisis\ *one*\ word.

这些限制可能会在docutils的新版本中取消。

reST同样允许使用自定义的 ‘“interpreted text roles”’，这表示包含的文本将用特定的方式解析。 Sphinx使用这个机制来提供相关标记和交叉索引定义。通用的语法是 :rolename:`content` 。

Lists and Quotes

List markup is natural: just place an asterisk at the start of a paragraph and indent properly. The same goes for numbered lists; they can also be autonumbered using a # sign:

* This is a bulleted list.
* It has two items, the second
  item uses two lines.

1. This is a numbered list.
2. It has two items too.

#. This is a numbered list.
#. It has two items too.

Note that Sphinx disables the use of enumerated lists introduced by alphabetic or roman numerals, such as :

A. First item
B. Second item

Nested lists are possible, but be aware that they must be separated from the parent list items by blank lines:

* this is
* a list

  * with a nested list
  * and some subitems

* and here the parent list continues

Definition lists are created as follows:

term (up to a line of text)
   Definition of the term, which must be indented

   and can even consist of multiple paragraphs

next term
   Description.

Paragraphs are quoted by just indenting them more than the surrounding paragraphs.

Source Code

Literal code blocks are introduced by ending a paragraph with the special marker ::. The literal block must be indented, to be able to include blank lines:

This is a normal text paragraph. The next paragraph is a code sample:
::

   It is not processed in any way, except
   that the indentation is removed.

   It can span multiple lines.

This is a normal text paragraph again.

The handling of the :: marker is smart:

• If it occurs as a paragraph of its own, that paragraph is completely left out of the document.

• If it is preceded by whitespace, the marker is removed.

• If it is preceded by non-whitespace, the marker is replaced by a single colon.

That way, the second sentence in the above example’s first paragraph would be rendered as “The next paragraph is a code sample:”.

Hyperlinks

Sections

Section headers are created by underlining (and optionally overlining) the section title with a punctuation character, at least as long as the text:

=================
This is a heading
=================

Normally, there are no heading levels assigned to certain characters as the structure is determined from the succession of headings. However, for the Python documentation, we use this convention:

• # with overline, for parts

• * with overline, for chapters

• =, for sections

• -, for subsections

• ^, for subsubsections

• ", for paragraphs

Explicit Markup

“Explicit markup” is used in reST for most constructs that need special handling, such as footnotes, specially-highlighted paragraphs, comments, and generic directives.

An explicit markup block begins with a line starting with .. followed by whitespace and is terminated by the next paragraph at the same level of indentation. (There needs to be a blank line between explicit markup and normal paragraphs. This may all sound a bit complicated, but it is intuitive enough when you write it.)

Directives

A directive is a generic block of explicit markup. Besides roles, it is one of the extension mechanisms of reST, and Sphinx makes heavy use of it.

Basically, a directive consists of a name, arguments, options and content. (Keep this terminology in mind, it is used in the next chapter describing custom directives.) Looking at this example, :

.. function:: foo(x)
              foo(y, z)
   :bar: no

   Return a line of text input from the user.

function is the directive name. It is given two arguments here, the remainder of the first line and the second line, as well as one option bar (as you can see, options are given in the lines immediately following the arguments and indicated by the colons).

The directive content follows after a blank line and is indented relative to the directive start.

Footnotes

For footnotes, use [#]_ to mark the footnote location, and add the footnote body at the bottom of the document after a “Footnotes” rubric heading, like so:

Lorem ipsum [#]_ dolor sit amet ... [#]_

.. rubric:: Footnotes

.. [#] Text of the first footnote.
.. [#] Text of the second footnote.

You can also explicitly number the footnotes for better context.

Comments

Every explicit markup block which isn’t a valid markup construct (like the footnotes above) is regarded as a comment.

Source encoding

Since the easiest way to include special characters like em dashes or copyright signs in reST is to directly write them as Unicode characters, one has to specify an encoding:

All Python documentation source files must be in UTF-8 encoding, and the HTML documents written from them will be in that encoding as well.

Gotchas

There are some problems one commonly runs into while authoring reST documents:

• Separation of inline markup: As said above, inline markup spans must be separated from the surrounding text by non-word characters, you have to use an escaped space to get around that.