sphinx: document data in python without displaying the data

Question

i know i can document (module) constants in sphinx with either

#: a tuple of primes
primes = (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17)

or

primes =  (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17)
"""a tuple of primes"""

which will then appear in the sphinx generated documentation; i.e. it will look something like this:

somemodule.primes

= (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17)

a tuple of primes

but what if the data is a very long list? then i would like to be able to have a docstring in the documentation but not have the actual data itself in the doc.

this is what i would like to have in the doc:

somemodule.primes

a tuple of primes

is there a way i can achieve this?

for completeness:

i ran sphinx-quickstart and enabled autodoc:

autodoc: automatically insert docstrings from modules (y/n) [n]: y

the only thing i have added to index.rst is:

``somemodule``
**************

.. automodule:: somemodule
    :members:

and somemodule.py contains this:

#: a tuple of primes
primes = (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17)

then i adapted sys.path in conf.py such that somemodule.py is in that path.

I'm not a sphinx expert, but I don't think sphinx is directly responsible for this - you're likely using the autodoc extension to generate your documentation, correct? — Aran-Fey
yes, the extension sphinx.ext.autodoc is enabled; and i use .. automodule:: for said module. — hiro protagonist
The autodata directive accepts an :annotation: option that lets you hide the constant's value. I don't know if automodule respects that setting if you set it in autodoc_default_options (and if it does, it'll then apply to all constants), but perhaps that's worth a try. — Aran-Fey
i am looking into autodata with mixed success so far. if i only have an annotation (and no docstring) i seem to get the annotation plus the tuple docstring: tuple() -> empty tuple tuple(iterable) -> tuple initialized from iterable’s items If the argument is a tuple, the return value is the same object. — hiro protagonist

JuanPi JuanPi · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-16T09:21:04

Just in case somebody ends up here. To hide the contents of a variable use the meta info list field.

Example:

primes = (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17)
"""A tuple of primes.

   :meta hide-value:
"""

sphinx: document data in python without displaying the data

2 Answers