libvirt/docs/styleguide.rst

Documentation style guide

The following documents some specific libvirt rules for writing docs in reStructuredText

Table of contents

Any document which uses headings and whose content is long enough to cause scrolling when viewed in the browser must start with a table of contents. This should be created using the default formatting:

.. contents::

Whitespace

Blocks should be indented with 3 spaces, and no tabs

Headings

RST allows headings to be created simply by underlining with any punctuation characters. Optionally the text may be overlined to.

For the sake of consistency, libvirt defines the following style requirement which allows for 6 levels of headings

=========
Heading 1
=========



Heading 2
=========



Heading 3
---------



Heading 4
~~~~~~~~~



Heading 5
.........



Heading 6
^^^^^^^^^

Manual pages

RST documents created as manual pages must have the following structure

===========
::PROGRAM::
===========

---------------------------
...line line description...
---------------------------

:Manual section: 8
:Manual group: Virtualization Support

.. contents::

SYNOPSIS
========

``::PROGRAM::`` [*OPTION*]...

DESCRIPTION
===========

...describe the tool / program ...

OPTIONS
=======

``-h``, ``--help``

Display command line help usage then exit.

...and other args....

FILES
=====

...any files used that the user needs to know about. eg config
files in particular...

AUTHORS
=======

Please refer to the AUTHORS file distributed with libvirt.

BUGS
====

Please report all bugs you discover.  This should be done via either:

#. the mailing list

 `https://libvirt.org/contact.html <https://libvirt.org/contact.html>`_

#. the bug tracker

 `https://libvirt.org/bugs.html <https://libvirt.org/bugs.html>`_

Alternatively, you may report bugs to your software distributor / vendor.


COPYRIGHT
=========

Copyright (C) ::DATE:: ::ORIGINAL AUTHOR::, and the authors listed in the
libvirt AUTHORS file.

LICENSE
=======

``::PROGRAM::`` is distributed under the terms of the GNU LGPL v2.1+.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There
is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE

SEE ALSO
========

...other man page links....
`https://www.libvirt.org/ <https://www.libvirt.org/>`_