### Navigation

- index
- modules |
- next |
- previous |
- Python v2.6.1 documentation »
- Documenting Python »

# The Sphinx build system

## The build configuration file

The documentation root, that is the `Doc` subdirectory of the source distribution, contains a file named `conf.py`. This file is called the “build configuration file”, and it contains several variables that are read and used during a build run.

These variables are:

version : string
  A string that is used as a replacement for the `|version|` reST substitution. It should be the Python version the documentation refers to. This consists only of the major and minor version parts, e.g. `2.5`, even for version 2.5.1.
release : string
  A string that is used as a replacement for the `|release|` reST substitution. It should be the full version string including alpha/beta/release candidate tags, e.g. `2.5.2b3`.

Both `release` and `version` can be `'auto'`, which means that they are determined at runtime from the `Include/patchlevel.h` file, if a complete Python source distribution can be found, or else from the interpreter running Sphinx.

today_fmt : string
  A `strftime` format that is used to format a replacement for the `|today|` reST substitution.
today : string
  A string that can contain a date that should be written to the documentation output literally. If this is nonzero, it is used instead of `strftime(today_fmt)`.
unused_files : list of strings
  A list of reST filenames that are to be disregarded during building. This could be docs for temporarily disabled modules or documentation that’s not yet ready for public consumption.
add_function_parentheses : bool
  If true, `()` will be appended to the content of `:func:`, `:meth:` and `:cfunc:` cross-references.
add_module_names : bool
  If true, the current module name will be prepended to all description unit titles (such as `.. function::`).

### Builder-specific variables

html_download_base_url : string
  The base URL for download links on the download page.
html_last_updated_fmt : string
  If this is not an empty string, it will be given to `time.strftime()` and written to each generated output file after “last updated on:”.
html_use_smartypants : bool
  If true, use SmartyPants to convert quotes and dashes to the typographically correct entities.
latex_paper_size : “letter” or “a4”
  The paper size option for the LaTeX document class.
latex_font_size : “10pt”, “11pt” or “12pt”
  The font size option for the LaTeX document class.

### Navigation

- index
- modules |
- next |
- previous |
- Python v2.6.1 documentation »
- Documenting Python »