PSEP: 12

Title: Sample reStructuredText PSEP Template

Version: $Revision$

Last-Modified: $Date$

Author: Matti Airas <matti.p.airas@nokia.com>

Status: Active

Type: Process

Content-Type: text/x-rst

Created: 25-Sep-2009

Abstract

========

This PSEP provides a boilerplate or sample template for creating your

own reStructuredText PSEPs.  In conjunction with the content guidelines

in PSEP 1 [1]_, this should make it easy for you to conform your own

PSEPs to the format outlined below.

Note: if you are reading this PSEP via the web, you should first grab

the text (reStructuredText) source of this PSEP in order to complete

the steps below.  **DO NOT USE THE HTML FILE AS YOUR TEMPLATE!**

To get the source this (or any) PSEP, look at the top of the HTML page

and click on the date & time on the "Last-Modified" line.  It is a

link to the source text in the PySide repository.

This PSEP has been adapted (mostly copied verbatim) from PEP 12.

Rationale

=========

PSEP submissions come in a wide variety of forms, not all adhering

to the format guidelines set forth below.  Use this template, in

conjunction with the format guidelines below, to ensure that your

PSEP submission won't get automatically rejected because of form.

ReStructuredText is offered as an alternative to plaintext PSEPs, to

allow PSEP authors more functionality and expressivity, while

maintaining easy readability in the source text.  The processed HTML

form makes the functionality accessible to readers: live hyperlinks,

styled text, tables, images, and automatic tables of contents, among

other advantages.  For an example of a PEP marked up with

reStructuredText, see PEP 287.

How to Use This Template

========================

To use this template you must first decide whether your PSEP is going

to be an Informational or Standards Track PSEP.  Most PSEPs are

Standards Track because they propose a new feature for the PySide

language or standard library.  When in doubt, read PSEP 1 for details

or contact the PSEP editors <pyside@lists.pyside.org>.

Once you've decided which type of PSEP yours is going to be, follow the

directions below.

- Make a copy of this file (``.txt`` file, **not** HTML!) and perform

  the following edits.

- Replace the "PSEP: 12" header with "PSEP: XXX" since you don't yet have

  a PSEP number assignment.

- Change the Title header to the title of your PSEP.

- Leave the Version and Last-Modified headers alone; we'll take care

  of those when we check your PSEP into PySide's Git repository.

  These headers consist of keywords ("Revision" and "Date" enclosed in

  "$"-signs) which are automatically expanded by the repository.

  Please do not edit the expanded date or revision text.

- Change the Author header to include your name, and optionally your

  email address.  Be sure to follow the format carefully: your name

  must appear first, and it must not be contained in parentheses.

  Your email address may appear second (or it can be omitted) and if

  it appears, it must appear in angle brackets.  It is okay to

  obfuscate your email address.

- If there is a mailing list for discussion of your new feature, add a

  Discussions-To header right after the Author header.  You should not add a

  Discussions-To header if the mailing list to be used is

  pyside@lists.pyside.org, or if discussions should be sent to you directly.

  Most Informational PSEPs don't have a Discussions-To header.

- Change the Status header to "Draft".

- For Standards Track PSEPs, change the Type header to "Standards

  Track".

- For Informational PSEPs, change the Type header to "Informational".

- For Standards Track PSEPs, if your feature depends on the acceptance

  of some other currently in-development PSEP, add a Requires header

  right after the Type header.  The value should be the PSEP number of

  the PSEP yours depends on.  Don't add this header if your dependent

  feature is described in a Final PSEP.

- Change the Created header to today's date.  Be sure to follow the

  format carefully: it must be in ``dd-mmm-yyyy`` format, where the

  ``mmm`` is the 3 English letter month abbreviation, i.e. one of Jan,

  Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.

- For Standards Track PSEPs, after the Created header, add a

  Python-Version header and set the value to the next planned version

  of Python, i.e. the one your new feature will hopefully make its

  first appearance in.  Do not use an alpha or beta release

  designation here.  Thus, if the last version of Python was 2.2 alpha

  1 and you're hoping to get your new feature into Python 2.2, set the

  header to::

      Python-Version: 2.2

  TODO: How to deal with different PySide/Qt/Python versions?

- Leave Post-History alone for now; you'll add dates to this header each time

  you post your PSEP to pyside@lists.pyside.org.  If you posted your PSEP to

  the lists on August 14, 2001 and September 3, 2001, the Post-History header

  would look like::

      Post-History: 14-Aug-2001, 03-Sept-2001

  You must manually add new dates and check them in.  If you don't

  have check-in privileges, send your changes to the PSEP editors.

- Add a Replaces header if your PSEP obsoletes an earlier PSEP.  The

  value of this header is the number of the PSEP that your new PSEP is

  replacing.  Only add this header if the older PSEP is in "final"

  form, i.e. is either Accepted, Final, or Rejected.  You aren't

  replacing an older open PSEP if you're submitting a competing idea.

- Now write your Abstract, Rationale, and other content for your PSEP,

  replacing all this gobbledygook with your own text. Be sure to

  adhere to the format guidelines below, specifically on the

  prohibition of tab characters and the indentation requirements.

- Update your References and Copyright section.  Usually you'll place

  your PSEP into the public domain, in which case just leave the

  Copyright section alone.  Alternatively, you can use the `Open

  Publication License`__, but public domain is still strongly

  preferred.

  __ http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/

- Leave the Emacs stanza at the end of this file alone, including the

  formfeed character ("^L", or ``\f``).

- Send your PSEP submission to the PSEP editors at pyside@lists.pyside.org.

ReStructuredText PSEP Formatting Requirements

=============================================

The following is a PSEP-specific summary of reStructuredText syntax.

For the sake of simplicity and brevity, much detail is omitted.  For

more detail, see `Resources`_ below.  `Literal blocks`_ (in which no

markup processing is done) are used for examples throughout, to

illustrate the plaintext markup.

General

-------

You must adhere to the Emacs convention of adding two spaces at the

end of every sentence.  You should fill your paragraphs to column 70,

but under no circumstances should your lines extend past column 79.

If your code samples spill over column 79, you should rewrite them.

Tab characters must never appear in the document at all.  A PSEP should

include the standard Emacs stanza included by example at the bottom of

this PSEP.

Section Headings

----------------

PSEP headings must begin in column zero and the initial letter of each

word must be capitalized as in book titles.  Acronyms should be in all

capitals.  Section titles must be adorned with an underline, a single

repeated punctuation character, which begins in column zero and must

extend at least as far as the right edge of the title text (4

characters minimum).  First-level section titles are underlined with

"=" (equals signs), second-level section titles with "-" (hyphens),

and third-level section titles with "'" (single quotes or

apostrophes).  For example::

    First-Level Title

    =================

    Second-Level Title

    ------------------

    Third-Level Title

    '''''''''''''''''

If there are more than three levels of sections in your PSEP, you may

insert overline/underline-adorned titles for the first and second

levels as follows::

    ============================

    First-Level Title (optional)

    ============================

    -----------------------------

    Second-Level Title (optional)

    -----------------------------

    Third-Level Title

    =================

    Fourth-Level Title

    ------------------

    Fifth-Level Title

    '''''''''''''''''

You shouldn't have more than five levels of sections in your PSEP.  If

you do, you should consider rewriting it.

You must use two blank lines between the last line of a section's body

and the next section heading.  If a subsection heading immediately

follows a section heading, a single blank line in-between is

sufficient.

The body of each section is not normally indented, although some

constructs do use indentation, as described below.  Blank lines are

used to separate constructs.

Paragraphs

----------

Paragraphs are left-aligned text blocks separated by blank lines.

Paragraphs are not indented unless they are part of an indented

construct (such as a block quote or a list item).

Inline Markup

-------------

Portions of text within paragraphs and other text blocks may be

styled.  For example::

    Text may be marked as *emphasized* (single asterisk markup,

    typically shown in italics) or **strongly emphasized** (double

    asterisks, typically boldface).  ``Inline literals`` (using double

    backquotes) are typically rendered in a monospaced typeface.  No

    further markup recognition is done within the double backquotes,

    so they're safe for any kind of code snippets.

Block Quotes

------------

Block quotes consist of indented body elements.  For example::

    This is a paragraph.

        This is a block quote.

        A block quote may contain many paragraphs.

Block quotes are used to quote extended passages from other sources.

Block quotes may be nested inside other body elements.  Use 4 spaces

per indent level.

Literal Blocks

--------------

..

    In the text below, double backquotes are used to denote inline

    literals.  "``::``" is written so that the colons will appear in a

    monospaced font; the backquotes (``) are markup, not part of the

    text.  See "Inline Markup" above.

    By the way, this is a comment, described in "Comments" below.

Literal blocks are used for code samples or preformatted ASCII art. To

indicate a literal block, preface the indented text block with

"``::``" (two colons).  The literal block continues until the end of

the indentation.  Indent the text block by 4 spaces.  For example::

    This is a typical paragraph.  A literal block follows.

    ::

        for a in [5,4,3,2,1]:   # this is program code, shown as-is

            print a

        print "it's..."

        # a literal block continues until the indentation ends

The paragraph containing only "``::``" will be completely removed from

the output; no empty paragraph will remain.  "``::``" is also

recognized at the end of any paragraph.  If immediately preceded by

whitespace, both colons will be removed from the output.  When text

immediately precedes the "``::``", *one* colon will be removed from

the output, leaving only one colon visible (i.e., "``::``" will be

replaced by "``:``").  For example, one colon will remain visible

here::

    Paragraph::

        Literal block

Lists

-----

Bullet list items begin with one of "-", "*", or "+" (hyphen,

asterisk, or plus sign), followed by whitespace and the list item

body.  List item bodies must be left-aligned and indented relative to

the bullet; the text immediately after the bullet determines the

indentation.  For example::

    This paragraph is followed by a list.

    * This is the first bullet list item.  The blank line above the

      first list item is required; blank lines between list items

      (such as below this paragraph) are optional.

    * This is the first paragraph in the second item in the list.

      This is the second paragraph in the second item in the list.

      The blank line above this paragraph is required.  The left edge

      of this paragraph lines up with the paragraph above, both

      indented relative to the bullet.

      - This is a sublist.  The bullet lines up with the left edge of

        the text blocks above.  A sublist is a new list so requires a

        blank line above and below.

    * This is the third item of the main list.

    This paragraph is not part of the list.

Enumerated (numbered) list items are similar, but use an enumerator

instead of a bullet.  Enumerators are numbers (1, 2, 3, ...), letters

(A, B, C, ...; uppercase or lowercase), or Roman numerals (i, ii, iii,

iv, ...; uppercase or lowercase), formatted with a period suffix

("1.", "2."), parentheses ("(1)", "(2)"), or a right-parenthesis

suffix ("1)", "2)").  For example::

    1. As with bullet list items, the left edge of paragraphs must

       align.

    2. Each list item may contain multiple paragraphs, sublists, etc.

       This is the second paragraph of the second list item.

       a) Enumerated lists may be nested.

       b) Blank lines may be omitted between list items.

Definition lists are written like this::

    what

        Definition lists associate a term with a definition.

    how

        The term is a one-line phrase, and the definition is one

        or more paragraphs or body elements, indented relative to

        the term.

Tables

------

Simple tables are easy and compact::

    =====  =====  =======

      A      B    A and B

    =====  =====  =======

    False  False  False

    True   False  False

    False  True   False

    True   True   True

    =====  =====  =======

There must be at least two columns in a table (to differentiate from

section titles).  Column spans use underlines of hyphens ("Inputs"

spans the first two columns)::

    =====  =====  ======

       Inputs     Output

    ------------  ------

      A      B    A or B

    =====  =====  ======

    False  False  False

    True   False  True

    False  True   True

    True   True   True

    =====  =====  ======

Text in a first-column cell starts a new row.  No text in the first

column indicates a continuation line; the rest of the cells may

consist of multiple lines.  For example::

    =====  =========================

    col 1  col 2

    =====  =========================

    1      Second column of row 1.

    2      Second column of row 2.

           Second line of paragraph.

    3      - Second column of row 3.

           - Second item in bullet

             list (row 3, column 2).

    =====  =========================

Hyperlinks

----------

When referencing an external web page in the body of a PSEP, you should

include the title of the page in the text, with either an inline

hyperlink reference to the URL or a footnote reference (see

`Footnotes`_ below).  Do not include the URL in the body text of the

PSEP.

Hyperlink references use backquotes and a trailing underscore to mark

up the reference text; backquotes are optional if the reference text

is a single word.  For example::

    In this paragraph, we refer to the `Python web site`_.

An explicit target provides the URL.  Put targets in a References

section at the end of the PSEP, or immediately after the reference.

Hyperlink targets begin with two periods and a space (the "explicit

markup start"), followed by a leading underscore, the reference text,

a colon, and the URL (absolute or relative)::

    .. _Python web site: http://www.python.org/

The reference text and the target text must match (although the match

is case-insensitive and ignores differences in whitespace).  Note that

the underscore trails the reference text but precedes the target text.

If you think of the underscore as a right-pointing arrow, it points

*away* from the reference and *toward* the target.

The same mechanism can be used for internal references.  Every unique

section title implicitly defines an internal hyperlink target.  We can

make a link to the Abstract section like this::

    Here is a hyperlink reference to the `Abstract`_ section.  The

    backquotes are optional since the reference text is a single word;

    we can also just write: Abstract_.

Footnotes containing the URLs from external targets will be generated

automatically at the end of the References section of the PSEP, along

with footnote references linking the reference text to the footnotes.

Text of the form "PSEP x" or "RFC x" (where "x" is a number) will be

linked automatically to the appropriate URLs.

Footnotes

---------

Footnote references consist of a left square bracket, a number, a

right square bracket, and a trailing underscore::

    This sentence ends with a footnote reference [1]_.

Whitespace must precede the footnote reference.  Leave a space between

the footnote reference and the preceding word.

When referring to another PSEP, include the PSEP number in the body

text, such as "PSEP 1".  The title may optionally appear.  Add a

footnote reference following the title.  For example::

    Refer to PSEP 1 [2]_ for more information.

Add a footnote that includes the PSEP's title and author.  It may

optionally include the explicit URL on a separate line, but only in

the References section.  Footnotes begin with ".. " (the explicit

markup start), followed by the footnote marker (no underscores),

followed by the footnote body.  For example::

    References

    ==========

    .. [2] PEP 1, "PEP Purpose and Guidelines", Warsaw, Hylton

       (http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0001)

If you decide to provide an explicit URL for a PSEP, please use this as

the URL template::

    http://www.pyside.org/docs/pseps/psep-xxxx

PSEP numbers in URLs must be padded with zeros from the left, so as to

be exactly 4 characters wide, however PSEP numbers in the text are

never padded.

During the course of developing your PSEP, you may have to add, remove,

and rearrange footnote references, possibly resulting in mismatched

references, obsolete footnotes, and confusion.  Auto-numbered

footnotes allow more freedom.  Instead of a number, use a label of the

form "#word", where "word" is a mnemonic consisting of alphanumerics

plus internal hyphens, underscores, and periods (no whitespace or

other characters are allowed).  For example::

    Refer to PSEP 1 [#PEP-1]_ for more information.

    References

    ==========

    .. [#PEP-1] PEP 1, "PEP Purpose and Guidelines", Warsaw, Hylton

       http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0001

Footnotes and footnote references will be numbered automatically, and

the numbers will always match.  Once a PSEP is finalized, auto-numbered

labels should be replaced by numbers for simplicity.

Images

------

If your PSEP contains a diagram, you may include it in the processed

output using the "image" directive::

    .. image:: diagram.png

Any browser-friendly graphics format is possible: .png, .jpeg, .gif,

.tiff, etc.

Since this image will not be visible to readers of the PSEP in source

text form, you should consider including a description or ASCII art

alternative, using a comment (below).

Comments

--------

A comment block is an indented block of arbitrary text immediately

following an explicit markup start: two periods and whitespace.  Leave

the ".." on a line by itself to ensure that the comment is not

misinterpreted as another explicit markup construct.  Comments are not

visible in the processed document.  For the benefit of those reading

your PSEP in source form, please consider including a descriptions of

or ASCII art alternatives to any images you include.  For example::

     .. image:: dataflow.png

     ..

        Data flows from the input module, through the "black box"

        module, and finally into (and through) the output module.

The Emacs stanza at the bottom of this document is inside a comment.

Escaping Mechanism

------------------

reStructuredText uses backslashes ("``\``") to override the special

meaning given to markup characters and get the literal characters

themselves.  To get a literal backslash, use an escaped backslash

("``\\``").  There are two contexts in which backslashes have no

special meaning: `literal blocks`_ and inline literals (see `Inline

Markup`_ above).  In these contexts, no markup recognition is done,

and a single backslash represents a literal backslash, without having

to double up.

If you find that you need to use a backslash in your text, consider

using inline literals or a literal block instead.

Habits to Avoid

===============

Many programmers who are familiar with TeX often write quotation marks

like this::

    `single-quoted' or ``double-quoted''

Backquotes are significant in reStructuredText, so this practice

should be avoided.  For ordinary text, use ordinary 'single-quotes' or

"double-quotes".  For inline literal text (see `Inline Markup`_

above), use double-backquotes::

    ``literal text: in here, anything goes!``

Resources

=========

Many other constructs and variations are possible.  For more details

about the reStructuredText markup, in increasing order of

thoroughness, please see:

* `A ReStructuredText Primer`__, a gentle introduction.

  __ http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/rst/quickstart.html

* `Quick reStructuredText`__, a users' quick reference.

  __ http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/rst/quickref.html

* `reStructuredText Markup Specification`__, the final authority.

  __ http://docutils.sourceforge.net/spec/rst/reStructuredText.html

The processing of reStructuredText PSEPs is done using Docutils_.  If

you have a question or require assistance with reStructuredText or

Docutils, please `post a message`_ to the `Docutils-users mailing

list`_.  The `Docutils project web site`_ has more information.

.. _Docutils:

.. _Docutils project web site: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/

.. _post a message:

   mailto:docutils-users@lists.sourceforge.net?subject=PEPs

.. _Docutils-users mailing list:

   http://docutils.sf.net/docs/user/mailing-lists.html#docutils-users

References

==========

.. [1] PSEP 1, PSEP Purpose and Guidelines, Airas

   (http://www.pyside.org/docs/pseps/psep-0001)

Copyright

=========

This document has been placed in the public domain.

..

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