The documentation build process uses Doxygen and Sphinx along with a few extensions.
If you're using Conda, the required software can be installed in a single line:
conda install -c conda-forge --file=arrow/ci/conda_env_sphinx.txtOtherwise, you'll first need to install Doxygen yourself (for example from your distribution's official repositories, if using Linux). Then you can install the Python-based requirements with the following command:
pip install -r arrow/docs/requirements.txtNote
If you are building the documentation on Windows, not all sections may build properly.
These two steps are mandatory and must be executed in order.
Process the C++ API using Doxygen
pushd arrow/cpp/apidoc doxygen popd
Build the complete documentation using Sphinx.
Note
This step requires the pyarrow library is installed in your python environment. One way to accomplish this is to follow the build instructions at :ref:`python-development` and then run
python setup.py installin arrow/python (it is best to do this in a dedicated conda/virtual environment).pushd arrow/docs make html popd
Note
Note that building the documentation may fail if your build of pyarrow is not sufficiently comprehensive. Portions of the Python API documentation will also not build without CUDA support having been built.
After these steps are completed, the documentation is rendered in HTML
format in arrow/docs/_build/html. In particular, you can point your browser
at arrow/docs/_build/html/index.html to read the docs and review any changes
you made.
You can use :ref:`Archery <archery>` to build the documentation within a Docker container.
archery docker run -v "${PWD}/docs:/build/docs" ubuntu-docsThe final output is located under the ${PWD}/docs directory.
.. seealso:: :ref:`docker-builds`.
You can build documentation in a single directory without needing to install all of the pre-requisites by installing sphinx, setting up a temporary index in the directory you want to build and then building that directory.
The example below shows how to do this in the arrow/docs/source/developers directory.
Install sphinx:
pip install sphinxNavigate to the arrow/docs directory:
cd arrow/docsCreate an temporary index file temp_index.rst file in the target directory:
echo $'.. toctree::\n\t:glob:\n\n\t*' > ./source/developers/temp_index.rstBuild the docs in the target directory:
sphinx-build ./source/developers ./source/developers/_build -c ./source -D master_doc=temp_indexThis builds everything in the target directory to a folder inside of it
called _build using the config file in the source directory.
Once you have verified the HTML documents, you can remove temporary index file:
rm ./source/developers/temp_index.rst