Structuring Python scripts for Sphinx-Gallery#

This page describes the structure and syntax that can be used in Python scripts to generate rendered HTML gallery pages.

A simple example#

Sphinx-Gallery expects each Python file to have two things:

A docstring, written in reST, that defines the header for the example. It must begin by defining a reST title. The title may contain any punctuation mark but cannot start with the same punctuation mark repeated more than 3 times. For example:
```
"""
"This" is my example-script
===========================

This example doesn't do much, it just makes a simple plot
"""
```
Python code. This can be any valid Python code that you wish. Any Matplotlib images that are generated will be saved to disk, and the reST generated will display these images with the built examples. By default only images generated by Matplotlib, or packages based on Matplotlib (e.g., Seaborn or Yellowbrick) are saved and displayed. However, you can change this to include other packages, see Image scrapers.

For a quick reference have a look at the example Introductory example - Plotting sin

Embed reST in your example Python files#

Additionally, you may embed reST syntax within your Python scripts. reST allows you to easily add formatted text, math equations and reference links, including cross referencing other examples. This will be rendered in-line with the Python code and its outputs, similar to how Jupyter Notebooks are structured (in fact, Sphinx-Gallery also creates a Jupyter Notebook for each example that is built).

You can embed reST in your Python examples by including a line of >= 20 # symbols, #%%, or # %%. For consistency, it is recommended that you use only one of the above three ‘block splitter’ options in your project. If using a line of #’s, we recommend using 79 #’s, like this:

###############################################################################

Any commented lines (line beginning with # followed by a space, to be PEP8-compliant) that immediately follow a block splitter will be rendered as reST in the built gallery examples. To switch back to writing code, either stop starting lines with # and a space or leave an empty line before writing code comments. You can thus easily alternate between text and code ‘blocks’. For example:

# This is commented python
myvariable = 2
print("my variable is {}".format(myvariable))

# %%
# This is a section header
# ------------------------
#
# In the built documentation, it will be rendered as reST. All reST lines
# must begin with '# ' (note the space) including underlines below section
# headers.

# These lines won't be rendered as reST because there is a gap after the last
# commented reST block. Instead, they'll resolve as regular Python comments.
# Normal Python code can follow these comments.
print('my variable plus 2 is {}'.format(myvariable + 2))

The #%% and # %% syntax is consistent with the ‘code block’ (or ‘code cell’) separator syntax in Visual Studio Code Python extension, Visual Studio Python Tools, Jupytext, Pycharm Professional, Hydrogen plugin (for Atom) and Spyder. Note that although the documentation of these editors/IDEs may only mention one of #%% or # %%, in practice both work. With these editors/IDEs, #%% or # %% at the start of a line signifies the start of a new code block. Code blocks allow you to separate your code into chunks, like in Jupyter Notebooks. All the code within a code block can be easily executed together. This functionality can be helpful when writing a Sphinx-Gallery .py example as the blocks allow you to easily create pairs of subsequent Sphinx-Gallery text and code blocks.

Here are the contents of an example Python file using the ‘code block’ functionality:

"""
This is my example script
=========================

This example doesn't do much, it just makes a simple plot
"""

# %%
# This is a section header
# ------------------------
# This is the first section!
# The `#%%` signifies to Sphinx-Gallery that this text should be rendered as
# reST and if using one of the above IDE/plugin's, also signifies the start of a
# 'code block'.

# This line won't be rendered as reST because there's a space after the last block.
myvariable = 2
print("my variable is {}".format(myvariable))
# This is the end of the 'code block' (if using an above IDE). All code within
# this block can be easily executed all at once.

# %%
# This is another section header
# ------------------------------
#
# In the built documentation, it will be rendered as reST after the code above!
# This is also another code block.

print('my variable plus 2 is {}'.format(myvariable + 2))

For a clear example refer to the rendered example Alternating text and code and compare it to the generated original python script

Examples in other programming languages#

Sphinx-Gallery also supports rendering HTML pages for examples written in programming languages other than Python, although these examples are not currently executed or scanned for output. See filename/ignore patterns for configuration settings.

For such examples, the header for the example is defined by the first comment block in the file, which must contain a reST title, and may contain any additional reST content that should appear above the first code block. For example, a C++ example could start with:

// My Awesome Example
// ==================
//
// The description continues as long as there are lines
// that start with a comment character.

reST content can likewise be embedded in comments that are marked with a special delimiter, where that delimiter depends on the comment characters used by the language of the example. Valid special delimiters are:

The comment character followed by %%. For example //%% for C++.
The comment character followed by a space, followed by %%. For example, // %% for C++.
A line of at least 20 comment characters. For example, //////////////////// for C++.

Any text following the special delimiter on the same line will be converted into a reST heading (underlined with -). The reST block continues until a line that does not start with a comment character is encountered. Some examples:

// %% Important Heading
// This is some text in a reST block in C++, appearing underneath a heading.
//
// * Start a list
// * Check it twice

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
! This is the start of a reST block in Fortran 90.
!
! It can contain multiple paragraphs.

For languages that use C-style multiline comments, the following styles are supported:

/* %%
 * Subheading
 * ----------
 *
 * Description
 */

int y = 3;

/**************************/
/* Another subheading     */
/* ------------------     */
/*                        */
/* Description            */
/**************************/
double z = 1.5;

Finally, for compatibility with Matlab’s use of a simple %% delimiter to mark code sections, this is allowed as a special delimiter in Matlab source files, in addition to the multi-language syntax described above:

%% Heading
% some text below the heading

Plain reST examples#

Sphinx-Gallery generates examples from Python scripts, so examples written in plain reST files are not supported. If you’re looking to generate hyperlinks for functions (linking to their corresponding online documentation) in code blocks of ordinary reST documentation, you might find sphinx-codeautolink helpful.