Can sphinx link to documents that are not located in directories below the root document?

I am using Sphinx to document a non-Python project. I want to distribute ./doc folders in each submodule, containing submodule_name.rst files to document that module. I then want to suck those files into the master hierarchy to create a spec for the entire design.

I.e.:

Project
  docs
    spec
      project_spec.rst
      conf.py
  modules
    module1
      docs
        module1.rst
      src
    module2
      docs
        module2.rst
      src

I attempted to include files in the master project_spec.rst document toctree like this:

.. toctree::
   :numbered:
   :maxdepth: 2

   Module 1 <../../modules/module1/docs/module1>

However this error message results:

WARNING: toctree contains reference to nonexisting document u'modules/module1/docs/module1'

Is it not possible to use ../ in a document path somehow?

Update: Added conf.py location

Update: Other than the include trick below, this is still (2019) not possible. There is an open issue that keeps getting pushed forward: https://github.com/sphinx-doc/sphinx/issues/701

Yes, you can!

In lieu of a symlink (which won't work on Windows), create a stub document that has nothing in it but a .. include:: directive.

I ran into this trying to link to a README file that was in the top of the source tree. I put the following in a file called readme_link.rst:

.. include:: ../README

Then in index.rst, I made the toctree look like:

Contents:

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 2

   readme_link
   other_stuff

And now I have a link to my release notes on my index page.

Thanks to http://reinout.vanrees.org/weblog/2010/12/08/include-external-in-sphinx.html for the suggestion

It seems that the answer is no, the documents listed in the toc-tree must reside within the source directory, that is, the directory containing your master document and conf.py (and any subdirectories).

From the sphinx-dev mailing list:

At STScI, we write documentation for individual projects in Sphinx, and then also produce a "master document" that includes (using toctree) a number of these other project-specific documents. To do this, we create symlinks in the master document's doc source directory to the projects' doc source directories, since toctree really doesn't seem to want to include files outside of the doc source tree.

So rather than copying files using shutil you could try adding symlinks to all of your modules in the Project/docs/spec directory. If you create a symlink to Project/modules you would then reference these files in your toc-tree simply as modules/module1/docs/module1 etc.

In conf.py, add the relative paths to system using sys.path and os.path

For example:

import os
import sys

sys.path.insert(0, os.path.abspath('..'))
sys.path.insert(0, os.path.abspath('../../Directory1'))
sys.path.insert(0, os.path.abspath('../../Directory2'))

Then use your index.rst as usual, referencing the rst files in the same directory. So in my index.rst in my local Sphinx folder:

Contents:

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 4

   Package1 <package1.rst>
   Package2 <package2.rst>
   Package3 <package3.rst>

Then in package1.rst, you should be able to just reference the relative packages normally.

Package1 package
=====================

Submodules
----------

Submodule1 module
----------------------------------

.. automodule:: file_within_directory_1
    :members:
    :undoc-members:
    :show-inheritance:

Submodule1 module
----------------------------------

.. automodule:: file_within_directory_2
    :members:
    :undoc-members:
    :show-inheritance:

I solved my quite similar problem with the difference I wanted to include an external jupyter notebook. I had installed nbsphinx but I couldn't get it to work. What did not work:

1. I had the directory I wanted to include the root in the path:

   conf.py :

   import os import sys sys.path.insert(...

2. Using the .. include:: directive the file was included in the documentation but as is.

Finally what solved the problem was installing package nbsphinx-link

It is also possible to configure sphinx to have only the index.rst file in the root and the all the other sphinx stuff in Project/docs:

For windows I moved all sphinx files and dirs (except index.rst) into docs/ and changed:

docs/make.bat: Change

set ALLSPHINXOPTS=-d %BUILDDIR%/doctrees %SPHINXOPTS%  .

to

set ALLSPHINXOPTS=-d %BUILDDIR%/doctrees %SPHINXOPTS%  -c . ..

docs/conf.py: Add

sys.path.insert(0, os.path.abspath('..'))