# Docutils Bugs

Author:

  David Goodger; open to all Docutils developers

Contact:
  goodger@python.org
Date:
  2024-08-15
Revision:
  9906
Copyright:
  This document has been placed in the public domain.

Bugs in Docutils?!? Yes, we do have a few. Some are old-timers that tend to stay in the shadows and don't bother anybody. Once in a while new bugs are born. From time to time some bugs (new and old) crawl out into the light and must be dealt with. Icky.

This document describes how to report a bug, and lists known bugs.

## How To Report A Bug

If you think you've discovered a bug, please read through these guidelines before reporting it.

First, make sure it's a new bug:

- Please check the list of known bugs below and the SourceForge Bug Tracker to see if it has already been reported.

- Are you using the very latest version of Docutils? The bug may have already been fixed. Please get the latest version of Docutils from the repository or from the current snapshot and check again. Even if your bug has not been fixed, others probably have, and you're better off with the most up-to-date code.

  If you don't have time to check the latest snapshot, please report the bug anyway. We'd rather tell you that it's already fixed than miss reports of unfixed bugs.

- If Docutils does not behave the way you expect, look in the documentation (don't forget the FAQ!) and mailing list archives for evidence that it should behave the way you expect.

If you're not sure, please ask on the Docutils-users mailing list first.

If it's a new bug, the most important thing you can do is to write a simple description and a recipe that reproduces the bug. Try to create a minimal example that demonstrates the bug. The easier you make it to understand and track down the bug, the more likely a fix will be.

Now you're ready to write the bug report. Please include:

- A clear description of the bug. Describe how you expected Docutils to behave, and contrast that with how it actually behaved. While the bug may seem obvious to you, it may not be so obvious to someone else, so it's best to avoid a guessing game.

- A complete description of the environment in which you reproduced the bug:

  - Your operating system & version.

  - The version of Python (python -V).

  - The version of Docutils (use the "-V" option to most Docutils front-end tools).

  - Any private modifications you made to Docutils.

  - Anything else that could possibly be relevant. Err on the side of too much information, rather than too little.

- A literal transcript of the exact command you ran, and the exact output. Use the "--traceback" option to get a complete picture.

- The exact input and output files. Create a minimal example of the failing behaviour — it is better to attach complete files to your bug report than to include just a summary or excerpt.

- If you also want to include speculation as to the cause, and even a patch to fix the bug, that would be great!

The best place to send your bug report is to the SourceForge Bug Tracker. That way, it won't be misplaced or forgotten. In fact, an open bug report on SourceForge is a constant irritant that begs to be squashed.

Thank you!

(This section was inspired by the Subversion project's BUGS file.)

## Known Bugs

Also see the SourceForge Bug Tracker.

- Calling rst2s5 with a non-existent theme (--theme does_not_exist) causes exceptions. Such errors should be handled more gracefully.

- The "stylesheet" setting (a URL, to be used verbatim) should be allowed to be combined with "embed_stylesheet". The stylesheet data should be read in using urllib. There was an assumption that a stylesheet to be embedded should exist as a file on the local system, and only the "stylesheet_path" setting should be used.

- utils.relative_path() sometimes returns absolute paths on Windows (like C:/test/foo.css) where it could have chosen a relative path.

  Furthermore, absolute pathnames are inserted verbatim, like href="C:/test/foo.css" instead of href="file:///C:/test/foo.css".

- Footnote label "5" should be "4" when processing the following input:

      ref [#abc]_ [#]_ [1]_ [#4]_

      .. [#abc] footnote
      .. [#] two
      .. [1] one
      .. [#4] four

  Output:

      <document source="<stdin>">
          <paragraph>
              ref
              <footnote_reference auto="1" ids="id1" refid="abc">
                  2

              <footnote_reference auto="1" ids="id2" refid="id5">
                  3

              <footnote_reference ids="id3" refid="id6">
                  1

              <footnote_reference auto="1" ids="id4" refid="id7">
                  5
          <footnote auto="1" backrefs="id1" ids="abc" names="abc">
              <label>
                  2
              <paragraph>
                  footnote
          <footnote auto="1" backrefs="id2" ids="id5" names="3">
              <label>
                  3
              <paragraph>
                  two
          <footnote backrefs="id3" ids="id6" names="1">
              <label>
                  1
              <paragraph>
                  one
          <footnote auto="1" backrefs="id4" ids="id7" names="4">
              <label>
                  5
              <paragraph>
                  four

- IDs are based on names. Explicit hyperlink targets have priority over implicit targets. But if an explicit target comes after an implicit target with the same name, the ID of the first (implicit) target remains based on the implicit name. Since HTML fragment identifiers are based on the IDs, the first target keeps the name. For example:

      .. contents::

      Section
      =======

      .. _contents:

      Subsection
      ----------

      text with a reference to contents_ and section_

      .. _section:

      This paragraph is explicitly targeted with the name "section".

  When processed to HTML, the 2 internal hyperlinks (to "contents" & "section") will work fine, but hyperlinks from outside the document using href="...#contents" and href="...#section" won't work. Such external links will connect to the implicit targets (table of contents and "Section" title) instead of the explicit targets ("Subsection" title and last paragraph).

  Hyperlink targets with duplicate names should be assigned new IDs unrelated to the target names (i.e., "id"-prefix serial IDs).

- The "contents" ID of the local table of contents in test/functional/expected/standalone_rst_pseudoxml.rst is lost in the HTML output at test/functional/expected/standalone_rst_html4css1.html.

- Blank first columns in simple tables with explicit row separators silently swallow their input. They should at least produce system error messages. But, with explicit row separators, the meaning is unambiguous and ought to be supported:

      ==============  ==========
      Table with row  separators
      ==============  ==========
                      and blank
      --------------  ----------
                      entries
      --------------  ----------
                      in first
      --------------  ----------
                      columns.
      ==============  ==========

  Added a commented-out test case to test/test_parsers/test_rst/test_SimpleTableParser.py.

- Footnote references with hyperlink targets cause a possibly invalid node tree and make the HTML writer crash:

      $ rst2pseudoxml
      [1]_

      .. _1: URI
      <document source="<stdin>">
          <paragraph>
              <footnote_reference ids="id1" refuri="URI">
                  1
          <target ids="id2" names="1" refuri="URI">

- Anonymous references have "name" attributes. Should they? Are they used? See test/test_parsers/test_rst/test_inline_markup.py.

- <reference> elements have a "name" attribute, not "names". The attribute should be "names"; this is an inconsistency.