How do you get Python documentation in Texinfo Info format?

Jon Waltman http://bitbucket.org/jonwaltman/sphinx-info has forked sphinx and written a texinfo builder, it can build the python documentation (I've yet done it). It seems that it will be merged soon into sphinx.

Here's the quick links for the downloads (temporary):

• http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1276730/python.info
• http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1276730/python.texi

Steps to generate python doc in texinfo format:

Download the python source code

Download and install the sphinx-info package (in a virtualenv)

Enter in the Python/Doc directory from the python sources

Edit the Makefile, to the build target replace $(PYTHON) tools/sphinx-build.py with sphinx-build, then add this target to the makefile, pay attention, the space before echo is a TAB:

texinfo: BUILDER = texinfotexinfo: build    @echo    @echo "Build finished. The Texinfo files are in _build/texinfo."    @echo "Run \`make' in that directory to run these through makeinfo" \          "(use \`make info' here to do that automatically)."

Edit the Python/Doc/conf.py adding:

texinfo_documents = [    ('contents', 'python', 'Python Documentation', 'Georg Brandl',     'Python', 'The Python Programming Language', 'Documentation tools',     1),]

Then run make texinfo and it should produce the texifile in the build/texinfo directory.To generate the info file run makeinfo python.texi

I've packaged up the Python docs as a texinfo file.

If you're using Emacs with MELPA, you can simply install this with M-x package-install python-info.

With no doubt it would be cool and challenging to generate the Python documentation on your particular Python version by yourself. Just follow EmacsWiki, or feel free to compile it locally (at Debian Jessy for Python3.4.2):

sudo apt-get install python3-sphinxcd ~/Desktopwget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.4.2/Python-3.4.2rc1.tar.xztar -xf Python-3.4.2rc1.tar.xzcd Python-3.4.2rc1/Doc/sphinx-build -b texinfo -d build/doctrees . build/texinfo# extra time to buildcd build/texinfo/makeinfo python.texi# extra time for convertation

I got this tree:

.                                                                                                                              ├── logging_flow.png                                                                                                           ├── Makefile                                                                                                                   ├── pathlib-inheritance.png                                                                                                    ├── python.info                                                                                                                ├── python.info-1                                                                                                              ├── python.info-10                                                                                                             ├── python.info-11                                                                                                             ├── python.info-12                                                                                                             ├── python.info-13                                                                                                             ├── python.info-14                                                                                                             ├── python.info-15                                                                                                             ├── python.info-16                                                                                                             ├── python.info-17                                                                                                             ├── python.info-18                                                                                                             ├── python.info-19                                                                                                             ├── python.info-2                                                                                                              ├── python.info-20                                                                                                             ├── python.info-21                                                                                                             ├── python.info-22                                                                                                             ├── python.info-23                                                                                                             ├── python.info-24                                                                                                             ├── python.info-25                                                                                                             ├── python.info-26                                                                                                             ├── python.info-27                                                                                                             ├── python.info-28                                                                                                             ├── python.info-29                                                                                                             ├── python.info-3                                                                                                              ├── python.info-30                                                                                                             ├── python.info-31                                                                                                             ├── python.info-32                                                                                                             ├── python.info-33                                                                                                             ├── python.info-34                                                                                                             ├── python.info-4                                                                                                              ├── python.info-5                                                                                                              ├── python.info-6                                                                                                              ├── python.info-7                                                                                                              ├── python.info-8                                                                                                              ├── python.info-9                                                                                                              ├── python.texi                                                                                                                ├── python-video-icon.png                                                                                                      ├── tulip_coro.png                                                                                                             └── turtle-star.png

And now it is possible to review python documentation natively in Emacs by

C-u C-h i python-info RET

python-info is a filename (fourth in the tree above), and even to bookmark some arbitrary nodes for habitual and regular reviewing convenience.