Documentation Guidelines

Project ACRN content is written using the reStructuredText markup language (.rst file extension) with Sphinx extensions, and processed using Sphinx to create a formatted stand-alone website. Developers can view this content either in its raw form as .rst markup files, or (with Sphinx installed) they can build the documentation using the Makefile (on Linux systems) to generate the HTML content. The HTML content can then be viewed using a web browser. This same .rst content is also fed into the Project ACRN documentation website.

You can read details about reStructuredText and about Sphinx extensions from their respective websites.

This document provides a quick reference for commonly used reST and Sphinx-defined directives and roles used to create the documentation you’re reading.

Headings

Document sections are identified through their heading titles, indicated with an underline below the title text. (While reST allows use of both and overline and matching underline to indicate a heading, we use only an underline indicator for headings.) For consistency in our documentation, we define the order of characters used to indicate the nested levels in the table of contents:

  • Use # for the Document title underline character

  • Use * for the First sub-section heading level

  • Use = for the Second sub-section heading level

  • Use - for the Third sub-section heading level

Additional heading-level depth is discouraged.

The heading underline must be at least as long as the title it’s under.

Here’s an example of nested heading levels and the appropriate underlines to use:

Document Title heading
######################

Section 1 heading
*****************

Section 2 heading
*****************

Section 2.1 heading
===================

Section 2.1.1 heading
---------------------

Section 2.2 heading
===================

Section 3 heading
*****************

Content Highlighting

Some common reST inline markup samples:

  • one asterisk: *text* for emphasis (italics),

  • two asterisks: **text** for strong emphasis (boldface), and

  • two back quotes: ``text`` for inline code samples.

ReST rules for inline markup try to be forgiving to account for common cases of using these marks. For example, using an asterisk to indicate multiplication, such as 2 * (x + y) will not be interpreted as an unterminated italics section. For inline markup, the characters between the beginning and ending characters must not start or end with a space, so *this is italics* ( this is italics) while * this isn't* (* this isn’t*).

If an asterisk or back quote appears in running text and could be confused with inline markup delimiters, you can eliminate the confusion by adding a backslash (\) before it.

Lists

For bullet lists, place an asterisk (*) or hyphen (-) at the start of a paragraph and indent continuation lines with two spaces.

The first item in a list (or sublist) must have a blank line before it and should be indented at the same level as the preceding paragraph (and not indented itself).

For numbered lists start with a 1. or a) for example, and continue with autonumbering by using a # sign and a . or ) as used in the first list item. Indent continuation lines with spaces to align with the text of first list item:

* This is a bulleted list.
* It has two items, the second
  item and has more than one line of reST text.  Additional lines
  are indented to the first character of the
  text of the bullet list.

1. This is a new numbered list. If there wasn't a blank line before it,
   it would be a continuation of the previous list (or paragraph).
#. It has two items too.

a) This is a numbered list using alphabetic list headings
#) It has three items (and uses autonumbering for the rest of the list)
#) Here's the third item.  Use consistent punctuation on the list
   number.

#. This is an autonumbered list (default is to use numbers starting
   with 1).

   #. This is a second-level list under the first item (also
      autonumbered).  Notice the indenting.
   #. And a second item in the nested list.
#. And a second item back in the containing list.  No blank line
   needed, but it wouldn't hurt for readability.

Definition lists (with one or more terms and their definition) are a convenient way to document a word or phrase with an explanation. For example, this reST content:

The Makefile has targets that include:

``html``
   Build the HTML output for the project

``clean``
   Remove all generated output, restoring the folders to a
   clean state.

Would be rendered as:

The Makefile has targets that include:

html

Build the HTML output for the project

clean

Remove all generated output, restoring the folders to a clean state.

Multi-Column Lists

If you have a long bullet list of items, where each item is short, you can indicate that the list items should be rendered in multiple columns with a special .. rst-class:: rst-columns directive. The directive will apply to the next non-comment element (e.g., paragraph) or to content indented under the directive. For example, this unordered list:

.. rst-class:: rst-columns

* A list of
* short items
* that should be
* displayed
* horizontally
* so it doesn't
* use up so much
* space on
* the page

would be rendered as:

  • A list of

  • short items

  • that should be

  • displayed

  • horizontally

  • so it doesn’t

  • use up so much

  • space on

  • the page

A maximum of three columns will be displayed if you use rst-columns (or rst-columns3), and two columns for rst-columns2. The number of columns displayed can be reduced based on the available width of the display window, reducing to one column on narrow (phone) screens if necessary.

Note

We’ve deprecated use of the hlist directive because it misbehaves on smaller screens.

Tables

There are a few ways to create tables, each with their limitations or quirks. Grid tables offer the most capability for defining merged rows and columns, but are hard to maintain:

+------------------------+------------+----------+----------+
| Header row, column 1   | Header 2   | Header 3 | Header 4 |
| (header rows optional) |            |          |          |
+========================+============+==========+==========+
| body row 1, column 1   | column 2   | column 3 | column 4 |
+------------------------+------------+----------+----------+
| body row 2             | ...        | ...      | you can  |
+------------------------+------------+----------+ easily   +
| body row 3 with a two column span   | ...      | span     |
+------------------------+------------+----------+ rows     +
| body row 4             | ...        | ...      | too      |
+------------------------+------------+----------+----------+

This example would render as:

Header row, column 1 (header rows optional)

Header 2

Header 3

Header 4

body row 1, column 1

column 2

column 3

column 4

body row 2

…

…

you can easily span rows too

body row 3 with a two column span

…

body row 4

…

…

List tables are much easier to maintain, but don’t support row or column spans:

.. list-table:: Table title
   :widths: 15 20 40
   :header-rows: 1

   * - Heading 1
     - Heading 2
     - Heading 3
   * - body row 1, column 1
     - body row 1, column 2
     - body row 1, column 3
   * - body row 2, column 1
     - body row 2, column 2
     - body row 2, column 3

This example would render as:

Table 11 Table title

Heading 1

Heading 2

Heading 3

body row 1, column 1

body row 1, column 2

body row 1, column 3

body row 2, column 1

body row 2, column 2

body row 2, column 3

The :widths: parameter lets you define relative column widths. The default is equal column widths. If you have a three-column table and you want the first column to be half as wide as the other two equal-width columns, you can specify :widths: 1 2 2. If you’d like the browser to set the column widths automatically based on the column contents, you can use :widths: auto.

File Names and Commands

Sphinx extends reST by supporting additional inline markup elements (called “roles”) used to tag text with special meanings and enable output formatting. (You can refer to the Sphinx Inline Markup documentation for the full list).

For example, there are roles for marking filenames (:file:`name`) and command names such as make (:command:`make`). You can also use the ``inline code`` markup (double backticks) to indicate a filename.

Don’t use items within a single backtick, for example `word`. Instead use double backticks: ``word``.

Internal Cross-Reference Linking

Traditional ReST links are supported only within the current file using the notation:

refer to the `internal-linking`_ page

which renders as,

refer to the internal-linking page

Note the use of a trailing underscore to indicate an outbound link. In this example, the label was added immediately before a heading, so the text that’s displayed is the heading text itself.

With Sphinx however, we can create link-references to any tagged text within the project documentation.

Target locations within documents are defined with a label directive:

.. _my label name:

Note the leading underscore indicating an inbound link. The content immediately following this label is the target for a :ref:`my label name` reference from anywhere within the documentation set. The label must be added immediately before a heading so that there’s a natural phrase to show when referencing this label (e.g., the heading text).

This is the same directive used to define a label that’s a reference to a URL:

.. _Hypervisor Wikipedia Page:
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervisor

To enable easy cross-page linking within the site, each file should have a reference label before its title so that it can be referenced from another file.

Note

These reference labels must be unique across the whole site, so generic names such as “samples” should be avoided.

For example, the top of this document’s .rst file is:

.. _doc_guidelines:

Documentation Guidelines
########################

Other .rst documents can link to this document using the :ref:`doc_guidelines` tag, and it will appear as Documentation Guidelines. This type of internal cross-reference works across multiple files. The link text is obtained from the document source, so if the title changes, the link text will automatically update as well.

There may be times when you’d like to change the link text that’s shown in the generated document. In this case, you can specify alternate text using :ref:`alternate text <doc_guidelines>` (renders as alternate text).

Non-ASCII Characters

You can insert non-ASCII characters such as a Trademark symbol (™) by using the notation |trade|. (It’s also allowed to use the UTF-8 characters directly.) Available replacement names are defined in an include file used during the Sphinx processing of the reST files. The names of these replacement characters are the same as those used in HTML entities to insert special characters such as &trade; and are defined in the file sphinx_build/substitutions.txt as listed here:

.. |br|     raw:: html        .. force a line break in HTML output (blank lines needed here)

   <br style="clear:both" />

.. These are replacement strings for non-ASCII characters used within the project
   using the same name as the html entity names (e.g., &copy;) for that character

.. |copy|   unicode:: U+000A9 .. COPYRIGHT SIGN
   :ltrim:
.. |trade|  unicode:: U+02122 .. TRADEMARK SIGN
   :ltrim:
.. |reg|    unicode:: U+000AE .. REGISTERED TRADEMARK SIGN
   :ltrim:
.. |deg|    unicode:: U+000B0 .. DEGREE SIGN
   :ltrim:
.. |plusminus|  unicode:: U+000B1 .. PLUS-MINUS SIGN
   :rtrim:
.. |micro|  unicode:: U+000B5 .. MICRO SIGN
   :rtrim:
.. |check|  unicode:: U+02714 .. HEAVY CHECK MARK
   :rtrim:
.. |oplus|  unicode:: U+02295 .. CIRCLED PLUS SIGN
.. |rarr|   unicode:: U+02192 .. RIGHTWARDS ARROW

We’ve kept the substitutions list small but you can add others as needed by submitting a change to the substitutions.txt file.

Code and Command Examples

Use the reST code-block directive to create a highlighted block of fixed-width text, typically used for showing formatted code or console commands and output. Smart syntax highlighting is also supported (using the Pygments package). You can also directly specify the highlighting language. For example:

.. code-block:: c

   struct _k_object {
      char *name;
      u8_t perms[CONFIG_MAX_THREAD_BYTES];
      u8_t type;
      u8_t flags;
      u32_t data;
   } __packed;

Note that there is a blank line between the code-block directive and the first line of the code-block body, and the body content is indented three spaces (to the first non-blank space of the directive name).

This would be rendered as:

struct _k_object {
   char *name;
   u8_t perms[CONFIG_MAX_THREAD_BYTES];
   u8_t type;
   u8_t flags;
   u32_t data;
} __packed;

You can specify other languages for the code-block directive, including c, python, and rst, and also console, bash, or shell. If you want no syntax highlighting, specify none. For example:

.. code-block:: none

   This would be a block of text styled with a background
   and box, but with no syntax highlighting.

Would display as:

This would be a block of text styled with a background
and box, but with no syntax highlighting.

There’s a shorthand for writing code blocks, too: end the introductory paragraph with a double colon (::) and indent the code block content by three spaces. On output, only one colon will appear.

Note

The highlighting package makes a best guess at the type of content in the block for highlighting purposes. This can lead to some odd highlighting in the generated output.

Images

Images are included in documentation by using an image directive:

.. image:: ../../images/doc-gen-flow.png
   :align: center
   :alt: alt text for the image

or if you’d like to add an image caption, use:

.. figure:: ../../images/doc-gen-flow.png
   :alt: image description

   Caption for the figure

The file name specified is relative to the document source file, and we recommend putting images into an images folder where the document source is found. The usual image formats handled by a web browser are supported: JPEG, PNG, GIF, and SVG. Keep the image size only as large as needed, generally at least 500 px wide but no more than 1000 px, and no more than 250 KB unless a particularly large image is needed for clarity.

Tabs, Spaces, and Indenting

Indenting is significant in reST file content, and using spaces is preferred. Extra indenting can (unintentionally) change the way content is rendered, too. For lists and directives, indent the content text to the first non-blank space in the preceding line. For example:

* List item that spans multiple lines of text
  showing where to indent the continuation line.

1. And for numbered list items, the continuation
   line should align with the text of the line above.

.. code-block::

   The text within a directive block should align with the
   first character of the directive name.

Keep the line length for documentation less than 80 characters to make it easier for reviewing in GitHub. Long lines due to URL references are an allowed exception.

Drawings

You can include a picture (.jpg, .png, or .svg for example) by using the .. image directive:

.. image:: ../images/ACRNlogo.png
   :align: center

This results in the image being placed in the document:

../_images/ACRNlogo.png

The preferred alternative is to use the .. figure directive to include a picture with a caption and automatic figure numbering for your image, (so that you can say see Figure 320, by using the notation :numref:`acrn-logo-figure` and specifying the name of figure):

.. figure:: ../images/ACRNlogo.png
   :align: center
   :name: acrn-logo-figure

   Caption for the figure
../_images/ACRNlogo.png

Figure 320 Caption for the figure

All figures should have a figure caption.

We’ve also included the graphviz Sphinx extension to enable you to use a text description language to render drawings. For more information, see Drawings Using Graphviz.

Alternative Tabbed Content

Instead of creating multiple documents with common material except for some specific sections, you can write one document and provide alternative content to the reader via a tabbed interface. When the reader clicks on a tab, the content for that tab is displayed. For example:

.. tabs::

   .. tab:: Apples

      Apples are green, or sometimes red.

   .. tab:: Pears

      Pears are green.

   .. tab:: Oranges

      Oranges are orange.

will display as:

Apples

Pears

Oranges

Apples are green, or sometimes red.

Pears are green.

Oranges are orange.

Tabs can also be grouped so that changing the current tab in one area changes all tabs with the same name throughout the page. For example:

Linux

macOS

Windows

Linux Line 1

macOS Line 1

Windows Line 1

Linux

macOS

Windows

Linux Line 2

macOS Line 2

Windows Line 2

In this latter case, we’re using a .. group-tab:: directive instead of a .. tab:: directive. Under the hood, we’re using the sphinx-tabs extension that’s included in the ACRN (requirements.txt) setup. Within a tab, you can have most any content other than a heading (code-blocks, ordered and unordered lists, pictures, paragraphs, and such).

Instruction Steps

A numbered instruction steps style makes it easy to create tutorial guides with clearly identified steps. Add the .. rst-class:: numbered-step directive immediately before a second-level heading (by project convention, a heading underlined with asterisks ******, and it will be displayed as a numbered step, sequentially numbered within the document. (Second-level headings without this rst-class directive will not be numbered.) For example:

.. rst-class:: numbered-step

Put your right hand in
**********************

First Instruction Step

This is the first instruction step material. You can do the usual paragraph and pictures as you’d use in normal document writing. Write the heading to be a summary of what the step is (the step numbering is automated so you can move steps around easily if needed).

Second Instruction Step

This is the second instruction step.

Note

As implemented, only one set of numbered steps is intended per document and the steps must be level 2 headings.

Configuration Option Documentation

Most of the ACRN documentation is maintained in .rst files found in the doc/ folder. API documentation is maintained as Doxygen comments in the C header files (or as kerneldoc comments in the acrn-kernel repo headers), along with some prose documentation in .rst files. The ACRN configuration option documentation is created based on details maintained in schema definition files (.xsd) in the misc/config_tools/schema folder. These schema definition files are used by the configuration tool to validate the XML scenario configuration files as well as to hold documentation about each option. For example:

<xs:element name="RELEASE" type="Boolean" default="n">
  <xs:annotation>
    <xs:documentation>Build an image for release (``y``) or debug (``n``).
In a **release** image, assertions are not enforced and debugging
features are disabled, including logs, serial console, and the
hypervisor shell.</xs:documentation>
  </xs:annotation>
</xs:element>

During the documentation make html processing, the documentation annotations in the .xsd files are extracted and transformed into restructureText using an XSLT transformation found in doc/scripts/configdoc.xsl. The generated option documentation is organized and formatted to make it easy to created links to specific option descriptions using an :option: role, for example :option:`hv.DEBUG_OPTIONS.RELEASE` would link to hv.DEBUG_OPTIONS.RELEASE.

The transformed option documentation is created in the _build/rst/reference/configdoc.txt file and included by doc/reference/config-options.rst to create the final published Scenario Configuration Options document. You make changes to the option descriptions by editing the documentation found in one of the .xsd files.

Documentation Generation

For instructions on building the documentation, see ACRN Documentation Generation.