python - sphinx-build fail - autodoc can't import/find module

Question

I'm trying to get started with Sphinx and seem to have relentless problems.

Command: docs/sphinx-quickstart

I answer all the questions and everything works fine.

Command: docs/ls

Everything looks normal. Result: build Makefile source

Command: sphinx-build -d build/doctrees source build/html

It seems to work. I was able to open the index.html file and see a "shell" of what I'm wanting.

When I try and put my actual source code as the source folder I run into problems.

Command: sphinx-build -d build/doctrees ../ys_utils build/html

Result:

Making output directory...
Running Sphinx v1.1.3
loading pickled environment... not yet created
No builder selected, using default: html
loading intersphinx inventory from http://docs.python.org/objects.inv...
building [html]: targets for 1 source files that are out of date
updating environment: 1 added, 0 changed, 0 removed
Traceback (most recent call last):                                                                                               
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/Sphinx-1.1.3-py2.6.egg/sphinx/ext/autodoc.py", line 321, in import_object
    __import__(self.modname)
ImportError: No module named ys_utils
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/Sphinx-1.1.3-py2.6.egg/sphinx/ext/autodoc.py", line 321, in import_object
    __import__(self.modname)
ImportError: No module named ys_utils.test_validate_ut
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/Sphinx-1.1.3-py2.6.egg/sphinx/ext/autodoc.py", line 321, in import_object
    __import__(self.modname)
ImportError: No module named ys_utils.git_utils
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/Sphinx-1.1.3-py2.6.egg/sphinx/ext/autodoc.py", line 321, in import_object
    __import__(self.modname)
ImportError: No module named setup.setup

/home/ricomoss/workspace/nextgen/ys_utils/ys_utils.rst:4: WARNING: autodoc can't import/find module 'ys_utils', it reported error: "No module named ys_utils", please check your spelling and sys.path
/home/ricomoss/workspace/nextgen/ys_utils/ys_utils.rst:10: WARNING: autodoc can't import/find module 'ys_utils.test_validate_ut', it reported error: "No module named ys_utils.test_validate_ut", please check your spelling and sys.path
/home/ricomoss/workspace/nextgen/ys_utils/ys_utils.rst:12: WARNING: don't know which module to import for autodocumenting u'UnitTests' (try placing a "module" or "currentmodule" directive in the document, or giving an explicit module name)
/home/ricomoss/workspace/nextgen/ys_utils/ys_utils.rst:18: WARNING: autodoc can't import/find module 'ys_utils.git_utils', it reported error: "No module named ys_utils.git_utils", please check your spelling and sys.path
/home/ricomoss/workspace/nextgen/ys_utils/ys_utils.rst:24: WARNING: autodoc can't import/find module 'setup.setup', it reported error: "No module named setup.setup", please check your spelling and sys.path
WARNING: master file /home/ricomoss/workspace/nextgen/ys_utils/index.rst not found
looking for now-outdated files... none found
pickling environment... done
checking consistency... /home/ricomoss/workspace/nextgen/ys_utils/ys_utils.rst:: WARNING: document isn't included in any toctree
done
preparing documents... done
writing output... [ 50%] index                                                                                                   
Exception occurred:
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/Sphinx-1.1.3-py2.6.egg/sphinx/environment.py", line 1213, in get_doctree
    f = open(doctree_filename, 'rb')
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home/ricomoss/workspace/nextgen/docs/build/doctrees/index.doctree'
The full traceback has been saved in /tmp/sphinx-err-jjJ7gM.log, if you want to report the issue to the developers.
Please also report this if it was a user error, so that a better error message can be provided next time.
Either send bugs to the mailing list at <http://groups.google.com/group/sphinx-dev/>,
or report them in the tracker at <http://bitbucket.org/birkenfeld/sphinx/issues/>. Thanks!

I am a complete newbie to Sphinx and relatively new to this kind of documentation. Can anyone offer some suggestions?

Edit:

I'd like to be able to use a Makefile to handle this. As of now I have two folders in my project.

nextgen/ls

docs ys_utils

I need nextgen/docs/Makefile to generate the HTML for ys_utils and all other modules I'm going to have.

Answer 1

Autodoc can't find your modules, because they are not in sys.path.

You have to include the path to your modules in in the sys.path in your conf.py. Look at the top of your conf.py (just after the import of sys), there is a sys.path.insert() statement, which you can adapt.

By the way: you can use the Makefile created by Sphinx to create your documentation. Just call

make

to see the options.

If something went wrong before try:

make clean

before running make html.