rst2man(1)

🎀 Name 🎀

okay bestie, meet rst2man — the absolute icon who generates unix manpages from reStructured text. no cap, she takes your .rst and hands you back real troff. 💅

🌸 Synopsis 🌸

rst2man [options] [<source> [<destination>]]

💖 Description 💖

So like, rst2man generates Unix manual (troff) documents from standalone reStructuredText sources — the whole lore is at https://docutils.sourceforge.io/docs/user/manpage.html if you wanna deep dive. 🦋

She reads from <source> (and if you don't give her one, default is stdin, she'll just vibe with whatever you pipe in) and writes to <destination> (default is stdout, so she'll scream it right into your terminal). ✨

There's a detailed settings reference at https://docutils.sourceforge.io/docs/user/config.html — highly recommend, it's giving encyclopedia but make it cute.

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✨ Options ✨

👑 General Docutils Options

• --output-path=<destination>, --output=<destination> — the output destination name. this one obsoletes the <destination> positional argument, she's got main character energy like that. Default: None (stdout).
• --title=<title> — set the document title as metadata. giving your doc a lil name tag. 🏷️
• --generator, -g — include a "Generated by Docutils" credit and link. always tag your collaborators, bestie.
• --no-generator — no generator credit. she's mysterious. 🙈
• --date, -d — include the date at the end of the document (UTC).
• --time, -t — include the time & date (UTC). both. timestamped. iconic.
• --no-datestamp — no datestamp of any kind, not even a lil one.
• --root-prefix=<path> — base directory for absolute paths when reading from the local filesystem. Default "".
• --source-link, -s — include a "View document source" link.
• --source-url=<URL> — use <URL> for a source link; this implies --source-link.
• --no-source-link — do not include a "View document source" link.
• --toc-entry-backlinks — link from section headers to TOC entries. (default)
• --toc-top-backlinks — link from section headers to the top of the TOC.
• --no-toc-backlinks — disable backlinks to the table of contents.
• --footnote-backlinks — link from footnotes/citations to references. (default)
• --no-footnote-backlinks — disable backlinks from footnotes and citations.
• --section-numbering — enable section numbering by Docutils. (default)
• --no-section-numbering — disable section numbering by Docutils.
• --strip-comments — remove comment elements from the document tree. bye girl 👋
• --leave-comments — leave comment elements in the document tree. (default)
• --strip-elements-with-class=<class> — remove all elements with classes="<class>" from the document tree. ⚠️ Warning: potentially dangerous; use with caution. (Multiple-use option — you can stack it.)
• --strip-class=<class> — remove all classes="<class>" attributes from elements in the document tree. ⚠️ Warning: potentially dangerous; use with caution. (Multiple-use option.)
• --report=<level>, -r <level> — report system messages at or higher than <level>, where <level> is one of: "info" or "1", "warning"/"2" (default), "error"/"3", "severe"/"4", "none"/"5". pick your drama threshold. 🎚️
• --verbose, -v — report all system messages. (Same as --report=1.) she tells you everything, fr fr.
• --quiet, -q — report no system messages. (Same as --report=5.) silence is golden 💜
• --halt=<level> — halt execution at system messages at or above <level>. Levels work like --report. Default: 4 (severe). she's drawing a line.
• --strict — halt at the slightest problem. Same as --halt=info. zero tolerance, we love a queen with standards.
• --exit-status=<level> — enable a non-zero exit status for non-halting system messages at or above <level>. Default: 5 (disabled).
• --debug — enable debug-level system messages and diagnostics. detective mode 🔍
• --no-debug — disable debug output. (default)
• --warnings=<file> — send the output of system messages to <file>.
• --traceback — enable Python tracebacks when Docutils is halted. the full receipts. 😭
• --no-traceback — disable Python tracebacks. (default)
• --input-encoding=<name[:handler]> — specify the encoding and optionally the error handler of input text. Default: utf-8.
• --output-encoding=<name[:handler]> — specify the text encoding and optionally the error handler for output. Default: utf-8.
• --error-encoding=<name[:handler]>, -e <name[:handler]> — specify text encoding and optionally the error handler for error output. Default: system encoding.
• --language=<tag>, -l <tag> — specify the language (as BCP 47 language tag). Default: en.
• --record-dependencies=<file> — write output file dependencies to <file>.
• --config=<file> — read configuration settings from <file>, if it exists.
• --version, -V — show this program's version number and exit.
• --help, -h — show this help message and exit.

🧚 Generic Parser Options

• --no-file-insertion — disable directives that insert the contents of an external file; replaced with a "warning" system message.
• --file-insertion-enabled — enable directives that insert the contents of an external file. (default)
• --no-raw — disable the "raw" directive; replaced with a "warning" system message.
• --raw-enabled — enable the "raw" directive. (default)
• --line-length-limit=<length> — maximal number of characters in an input line. Default 10 000.
• --legacy-ids — keep identifiers backwards compatible. Default.
• --matching-ids — explicit targets use identifiers matching the reference name.
• --validate — validate the document tree after parsing. glow up check ✨
• --no-validation — do not validate the document tree. (default)

🦋 reStructuredText Parser Options

• --pep-references — recognize and link to standalone PEP references (like "PEP 258").
• --pep-base-url=<URL> — base URL for PEP references (default "https://peps.python.org/").
• --pep-file-url-template=<URL> — template for the PEP file part of the URL. (default "pep-%04d")
• --rfc-references — recognize and link to standalone RFC references (like "RFC 822").
• --rfc-base-url=<URL> — base URL for RFC references (default "https://tools.ietf.org/html/").
• --tab-width=<width> — set number of spaces for tab expansion (default 8).
• --trim-footnote-reference-space — remove spaces before footnote references.
• --leave-footnote-reference-space — leave spaces before footnote references.
• --syntax-highlight=<format> — token name set for parsing code with Pygments, one of "long", "short", or "none" (no parsing). Default is "long".
• --smart-quotes=<yes/no/alt> — change straight quotation marks to typographic form, one of "yes", "no", "alt[ernative]" (default "no").
• --smartquotes-locales=<language:quotes[,language:quotes,...]> — characters to use as "smart quotes" for <language>.
• --word-level-inline-markup — inline markup recognized at word boundaries only (adjacent to punctuation or whitespace). Force character-level inline markup recognition with \ (backslash + space). Default.
• --character-level-inline-markup — inline markup recognized anywhere, regardless of surrounding characters. Backslash-escapes must be used to avoid unwanted markup recognition. Useful for East Asian languages. Experimental. 🧪

🌈 Standalone Reader Options

• --no-doc-title — disable the promotion of a lone top-level section title to document title (and the subsequent promotion of a section title to document subtitle; that whole thing is enabled by default).
• --no-doc-info — disable the bibliographic field list transform (enabled by default).
• --section-subtitles — activate the promotion of lone subsection titles to section subtitles (disabled by default).
• --no-section-subtitles — deactivate the promotion of lone subsection titles.

💅 Manpage Writer Options

• --text-references — write references in plain text form. (default)
• --macro-references — use man macros UR and MT for references.

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💜 this was the rst2man(1) glow-up, living under the text processing corner of your manual, and that rst2man(1) stamped on the bottom is just the footer saying hi. go make some manpages, you ate. 🎀✨