- Home
- Get it
- Docs
- Extend/Develop

# sphinx-apidoc manual page

## Synopsis

sphinx-apidoc [options] -o <outputdir> <sourcedir> [pathnames ...]

## Description

sphinx-apidoc is a tool for automatic generation of Sphinx sources that, using the autodoc extension, document a whole package in the style of other automatic API documentation tools.

sourcedir must point to a Python package. Any pathnames given are paths to be excluded from the generation.

Warning

`sphinx-apidoc` generates source files that use `sphinx.ext.autodoc` to document all found modules. If any modules have side effects on import, these will be executed by `autodoc` when `sphinx-build` is run.

If you document scripts (as opposed to library modules), make sure their main routine is protected by a `if __name__ == '__main__'` condition.

## Options

`-o <outputdir>` | Directory to place the output files. If it does not exist, it is created.
`-f, --force` | Usually, apidoc does not overwrite files, unless this option is given.
`-l, --follow-links`
| Follow symbolic links.
`-n, --dry-run` | If given, apidoc does not create any files.
`-s <suffix>` | Suffix for the source files generated, default is `rst`.
`-d <maxdepth>` | Maximum depth for the generated table of contents file.
`-T, --no-toc` | Do not create a table of contents file.
`-F, --full` | If given, a full Sphinx project is generated (`conf.py`, `Makefile` etc.) using sphinx-quickstart.
`-e, --separate` | Put each module file in its own page.
`-E, --no-headings`
| Don’t create headings for the modules/packages
`-P, --private` | Include “_private” modules

These options are used with `-F`:

`-H <project>` | Project name to put into the configuration.
`-A <author>` | Author name(s) to put into the configuration.
`-V <version>` | Project version.
`-R <release>` | Project release.

## See also

sphinx-build(1)

## Author

Etienne Desautels, <etienne.desautels@gmail.com>, Georg Brandl <georg@python.org> et al.