reStructuredText Support in Trac

Introduction

Trac supports ​reStructuredText (RST) as an alternative to wiki markup where WikiFormatting is used.

From the reStucturedText webpage:

"reStructuredText is an easy-to-read, what-you-see-is-what-you-get plaintext markup syntax and parser system. It is useful for in-line program documentation (such as Python docstrings), for quickly creating simple web pages, and for standalone documents. reStructuredText is designed for extensibility for specific application domains."

If you want a file from your Subversion repository to be displayed as reStructuredText in the Trac source browser, set text/x-rst as the value for the Subversion property svn:mime-type. See ​this example.

Requirements

To activate RST support in Trac, install the python docutils package: easy_install docutils. If not already available on your operating system, you can download it at the ​RST Website.

Do not use the package manager of your OS, eg apt-get install python-docutils, because Trac will not find docutils then.

More information on RST

• reStructuredText Website -- ​http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
• RST Quick Reference -- ​http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/rst/quickref.html

Using RST in Trac

To specify that a block of text should be parsed using RST, use the rst processor.

TracLinks in reStructuredText

• Trac provides a custom RST directive trac:: to allow TracLinks from within RST text.

Wiki Markup	Display
{{{ #!rst This is a reference to |a ticket| .. |a ticket| trac:: #42 }}}	This is a reference to |a ticket| .. |a ticket| trac:: #42

• Trac allows an even easier way of creating TracLinks in RST, using the custom :trac: role.

Wiki Markup	Display
{{{ #!rst This is a reference to ticket `#12`:trac: To learn how to use Trac, see `TracGuide`:trac: }}}	This is a reference to ticket `#12`:trac: To learn how to use Trac, see `TracGuide`:trac:

For a complete example of all uses of the :trac: role, please see WikiRestructuredTextLinks.

Syntax highlighting in reStructuredText

There is a directive for doing TracSyntaxColoring in RST as well. The directive is called code-block:

Wiki Markup	Display
{{{ #!rst .. code-block:: python class Test: def TestFunction(self): pass }}}	.. code-block:: python class Test: def TestFunction(self): pass

Note the need to indent the code at least one character after the .. code-block directive.

Wiki Macros in reStructuredText

To enable Wiki Macros in RST, you use the same directive as for syntax highlighting, ie code-block:

Wiki Markup	Display
{{{ #!rst .. code-block:: RecentChanges Trac,3 }}}	.. code-block:: RecentChanges Trac,3

Or a more concise Wiki Macro-like syntax is also available, using the :code-block: role:

Wiki Markup	Display
{{{ #!rst :code-block:`RecentChanges:Trac,3` }}}	:code-block:`RecentChanges:Trac,3`

Bigger RST Example

The example below should be self-explanatory:

Wiki Markup	Display
{{{ #!rst FooBar Header ============= reStructuredText is **nice**. It has its own webpage_. A table: ===== ===== ====== Inputs Output ------------ ------ A B A or B ===== ===== ====== False False False True False True False True True True True True ===== ===== ====== RST TracLinks ------------- See also ticket `#42`:trac:. .. _webpage: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html }}}	FooBar Header ============= reStructuredText is **nice**. It has its own webpage_. A table: ===== ===== ====== Inputs Output ------------ ------ A B A or B ===== ===== ====== False False False True False True False True True True True True ===== ===== ====== RST TracLinks ------------- See also ticket `#42`:trac:. .. _webpage: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html

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See also: WikiRestructuredTextLinks, WikiProcessors, WikiFormatting