How to force Sphinx to use Python 3.x interpreter

Question

I try to create documentation for a project written with Python 3.x. Sphinx is the tool I want to use and, according to the official site, its last version 1.1.2 is

Answer 1

When I searched for an answer, this is the site that came up over and over. I'm thinking the answer is not easy to find because everyone else understands sphinx better than I can figure out. But if any is still searching for an answer, this is what eventually I ended up with:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install python3

sudo apt-get install sqlite3

sudo apt-get install idle3

sudo apt-get install python3-pip

sudo apt-get install python3-docutils

sudo apt-get install python3-jinja2

sudo apt-get install python3-pygments

sudo pip3 install Sphinx

The key was I was missing the fact that there was a pip3. I also update the system before adding a package as habit.

Answer 2

I'm on Ubunut and had the same problem. I won't use Josh_P or Nicolas answer because..

• I don't want to change my PYTHON path.
• I don't want to uninstall python-sphinx because I need it with older Projects.

So i fixed it with this little script called sphinx3-build:

#!/usr/bin/python3
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
"""
Same as /usr/bin/sphinx-build but with different
interpreter
"""

import sys

if __name__ == '__main__':
    from sphinx import main, make_main
    if sys.argv[1:2] == ['-M']:
        sys.exit(make_main(sys.argv))
    else:
        sys.exit(main(sys.argv))

It's the same as sphinx-build but with a different interpreter. In the Makefile I changed the following line:

SPHINXBUILD   = sphinx3-build

Now copy the file to the /usr/bin/ folder:

sudo cp sphinx3-build /usr/bin/

This worked for me. You could also use it locally for one project only by placing the script into the same folder as the Makefile and set SPHINXBUILD to ./sphinx3-build.

Answer 3

I think Sphinx simply uses the "python" command as interpreter. But according to the Makefile, you can specify your own with the PYTHON option, when running make for installation.