Generate pydoc's topic help from the reST docs via Sphinx'

new text writer.

Doc/Makefile

@@ -98,6 +98,11 @@ doctest: build
 	@echo "Testing of doctests in the sources finished, look at the " \
 	      "results in build/doctest/output.txt"
 
+pydoc-topics: BUILDER = pydoc-topics
+pydoc-topics: build
+	@echo "Building finished; now copy build/pydoc-topics/pydoc_topics.py " \
+	      "into the Lib/ directory"
+
 clean:
 	-rm -rf build/*
 	-rm -rf tools/sphinx

Doc/README.txt

@@ -64,6 +64,11 @@ Available make targets are:
  * "coverage", which builds a coverage overview for standard library modules
    and C API.
 
+ * "pydoc-topics", which builds a Python module containing a dictionary
+   with plain text documentation for the labels defined in
+   `tools/sphinxext/pyspecific.py` -- pydoc needs these to show topic
+   and keyword help.
+
 A "make update" updates the Subversion checkouts in `tools/`.
 
 

Doc/tools/sphinxext/pyspecific.py

@@ -20,5 +20,71 @@ def issue_role(typ, rawtext, text, lineno, inliner, options={}, content=[]):
     return [refnode], []
 
 
+# Support for building "topic help" for pydoc
+
+pydoc_topic_labels = [
+    'assert', 'assignment', 'atom-identifiers', 'atom-literals',
+    'attribute-access', 'attribute-references', 'augassign', 'binary',
+    'bitwise', 'bltin-code-objects', 'bltin-ellipsis-object',
+    'bltin-file-objects', 'bltin-null-object', 'bltin-type-objects', 'booleans',
+    'break', 'callable-types', 'calls', 'class', 'coercion-rules',
+    'comparisons', 'compound', 'context-managers', 'continue', 'conversions',
+    'customization', 'debugger', 'del', 'dict', 'dynamic-features', 'else',
+    'exceptions', 'exec', 'execmodel', 'exprlists', 'floating', 'for',
+    'formatstrings', 'function', 'global', 'id-classes', 'identifiers', 'if',
+    'imaginary', 'import', 'in', 'integers', 'lambda', 'lists', 'naming',
+    'numbers', 'numeric-types', 'objects', 'operator-summary', 'pass', 'power',
+    'print', 'raise', 'return', 'sequence-methods', 'sequence-types',
+    'shifting', 'slicings', 'specialattrs', 'specialnames',
+    'string-conversions', 'string-methods', 'strings', 'subscriptions', 'truth',
+    'try', 'types', 'typesfunctions', 'typesmapping', 'typesmethods',
+    'typesmodules', 'typesseq', 'typesseq-mutable', 'unary', 'while', 'with',
+    'yield'
+]
+
+from os import path
+from time import asctime
+from pprint import pformat
+from docutils.io import StringOutput
+from docutils.utils import new_document
+from sphinx.builder import Builder
+from sphinx.textwriter import TextWriter
+
+class PydocTopicsBuilder(Builder):
+    name = 'pydoc-topics'
+
+    def init(self):
+        self.topics = {}
+
+    def get_outdated_docs(self):
+        return 'all pydoc topics'
+
+    def get_target_uri(self, docname, typ=None):
+        return ''  # no URIs
+
+    def write(self, *ignored):
+        writer = TextWriter(self)
+        for label in self.status_iterator(pydoc_topic_labels, 'building topics... '):
+            if label not in self.env.labels:
+                self.warn('label %r not in documentation' % label)
+                continue
+            docname, labelid, sectname = self.env.labels[label]
+            doctree = self.env.get_and_resolve_doctree(docname, self)
+            document = new_document('<section node>')
+            document.append(doctree.ids[labelid])
+            destination = StringOutput(encoding='utf-8')
+            writer.write(document, destination)
+            self.topics[label] = writer.output
+
+    def finish(self):
+        f = open(path.join(self.outdir, 'pydoc_topics.py'), 'w')
+        try:
+            f.write('# Autogenerated by Sphinx on %s\n' % asctime())
+            f.write('topics = ' + pformat(self.topics) + '\n')
+        finally:
+            f.close()
+
+
 def setup(app):
     app.add_role('issue', issue_role)
+    app.add_builder(PydocTopicsBuilder)