Documentation Format
The Symfony documentation uses reStructuredText as its markup language and Sphinx for generating the documentation in the formats read by the end users, such as HTML and PDF.
reStructuredText
reStructuredText is a plain text markup syntax similar to Markdown, but much stricter with its syntax. If you are new to reStructuredText, take some time to familiarize with this format by reading the existing Symfony documentation source code.
If you want to learn more about this format, check out the reStructuredText Primer tutorial and the reStructuredText Reference.
Caution
If you are familiar with Markdown, be careful as things are sometimes very similar but different:
- Lists start at the beginning of a line (no indentation is allowed);
- Inline code blocks use double-ticks (
``like this``
).
Sphinx
Sphinx is a build system that provides tools to create documentation from reStructuredText documents. As such, it adds new directives and interpreted text roles to the standard reStructuredText markup. Read more about the Sphinx Markup Constructs.
Syntax Highlighting
PHP is the default syntax highlighter applied to all code blocks. You can
change it with the code-block
directive:
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.. code-block:: yaml
{ foo: bar, bar: { foo: bar, bar: baz } }
Note
Besides all of the major programming languages, the syntax highlighter supports all kinds of markup and configuration languages. Check out the list of supported languages on the syntax highlighter website.
Configuration Blocks
Whenever you include a configuration sample, use the configuration-block
directive to show the configuration in all supported configuration formats
(PHP
, YAML
and XML
). Example:
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.. configuration-block::
.. code-block:: yaml
# Configuration in YAML
.. code-block:: xml
<!-- Configuration in XML -->
.. code-block:: php
// Configuration in PHP
The previous reStructuredText snippet renders as follow:
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# Configuration in YAML
1
<!-- Configuration in XML -->
1
// Configuration in PHP
All code examples assume that you are using that feature inside a Symfony
application. If you ever need to also show how to use it when working with
standalone components in any PHP application, use the special formats
php-symfony
and php-standalone
, which will be rendered like this:
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// PHP code using features provided by the Symfony framework
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// PHP code using standalone components
The current list of supported formats are the following:
Markup Format | Use It to Display |
---|---|
caddy |
Caddy web server configuration |
env |
Bash files (like .env files) |
html+php |
PHP code blended with HTML |
html+twig |
Twig markup blended with HTML |
html |
HTML |
ini |
INI |
php-annotations |
PHP Annotations |
php-attributes |
PHP Attributes |
php-standalone |
PHP code to be used in any PHP application using standalone Symfony components |
php-symfony |
PHP code example when using the Symfony framework |
php |
PHP |
rst |
reStructuredText markup |
terminal |
Renders the contents as a console terminal (use it to show which commands to run) |
twig |
Pure Twig markup |
varnish3 |
Varnish Cache 3 configuration |
varnish4 |
Varnish Cache 4 configuration |
vcl |
Varnish Configuration Language |
xml |
XML |
yaml |
YAML |
Displaying Tabs
It is possible to display tabs in the documentation. They look similar to configuration blocks when rendered, but tabs can hold any type of content:
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.. tabs:: UX Installation
.. tab:: Webpack Encore
Introduction to Webpack
.. code-block:: yaml
webpack:
# ...
.. tab:: AssetMapper
Introduction to AssetMapper
Something else about AssetMapper
Adding Links
The most common type of links are internal links to other documentation pages, which use the following syntax:
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:doc:`/absolute/path/to/page`
The page name should not include the file extension (.rst
). For example:
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:doc:`/controller`
:doc:`/components/event_dispatcher`
:doc:`/configuration/environments`
The title of the linked page will be automatically used as the text of the link. If you want to modify that title, use this alternative syntax:
1
:doc:`Doctrine Associations </doctrine/associations>`
Note
Although they are technically correct, avoid the use of relative internal links such as the following, because they break the references in the generated PDF documentation:
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:doc:`controller`
:doc:`event_dispatcher`
:doc:`environments`
Links to specific page sections follow a different syntax. First, define a
target above section you will link to (syntax: .. _
+ target name + :
):
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# /service_container/autowiring.rst
# define the target
.. _autowiring-calls:
Autowiring other Methods (e.g. Setters and Public Typed Properties)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
// section content ...
Then, use the :ref::
directive to link to that section from another file:
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# /reference/attributes.rst
:ref:`Required <autowiring-calls>`
Links to the API follow a different syntax, where you must specify the type
of the linked resource (class
or method
):
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:class:`Symfony\\Component\\Routing\\Matcher\\ApacheUrlMatcher`
:method:`Symfony\\Component\\HttpKernel\\Bundle\\Bundle::build`
Links to the PHP documentation follow a pretty similar syntax:
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:phpclass:`SimpleXMLElement`
:phpmethod:`DateTime::createFromFormat`
:phpfunction:`iterator_to_array`
New Features, Behavior Changes or Deprecations
If you are documenting a brand new feature, a change or a deprecation that's been made in Symfony, you should precede your description of the change with the corresponding directive and a short description:
For a new feature or a behavior change use the .. versionadded:: 5.x
directive:
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.. versionadded:: 5.2
... ... ... was introduced in Symfony 5.2.
If you are documenting a behavior change, it may be helpful to briefly describe how the behavior has changed:
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.. versionadded:: 5.2
... ... ... was introduced in Symfony 5.2. Prior to this,
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .
For a deprecation use the .. deprecated:: 5.x
directive:
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.. deprecated:: 5.2
... ... ... was deprecated in Symfony 5.2.
Whenever a new major version of Symfony is released (e.g. 6.0, 7.0, etc), a new
branch of the documentation is created from the x.4
branch of the previous
major version. At this point, all the versionadded
and deprecated
tags
for Symfony versions that have a lower major version will be removed. For
example, if Symfony 6.0 were released today, 5.0 to 5.4 versionadded
and
deprecated
tags would be removed from the new 6.0
branch.