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How to read the Django documentation

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We've put a lot of effort into making Django's documentation useful, easy to

read and as complete as possible. Here are a few tips on how to make the best

of it, along with some style guidelines.

(Yes, this is documentation about documentation. Rest assured we have no plans

to write a document about how to read the document about documentation.)

How documentation is updated

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

Just as the Django code base is developed and improved on a daily basis, our

documentation is consistently improving. We improve documentation for several

reasons:

    * To make content fixes, such as grammar/typo corrections.

    * To add information and/or examples to existing sections that need to be

      expanded.

    * To document Django features that aren't yet documented. (The list of

      such features is shrinking but exists nonetheless.)

    * To add documentation for new features as new features get added, or as

      Django APIs or behaviors change.

Django's documentation is kept in the same source control system as its code.

It lives in the `django/trunk/docs`_ directory of our Subversion repository.

Each document is a separate text file that covers a narrowly focused topic,

such as the "generic views" framework or how to construct a database model.

.. _django/trunk/docs: http://code.djangoproject.com/browser/django/trunk/docs

Where to get it

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

You can read Django documentation in several ways. They are, in order of

preference:

On the Web

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The most recent version of the Django documentation lives at

http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/ . These HTML pages are generated

automatically from the text files in source control every 15 minutes. That

means they reflect the "latest and greatest" in Django -- they include the very

latest corrections and additions, and they discuss the latest Django features,

which may only be available to users of the Django development version. (See

"Differences between versions" below.)

A key advantage of the Web-based documentation is the comment section at the

bottom of each document. This is an area for anybody to submit changes,

corrections and suggestions about the given document. The Django developers

frequently monitor the comments there and use them to improve the documentation

for everybody.

We encourage you to help improve the docs: it's easy! Note, however, that

comments should explicitly relate to the documentation, rather than asking

broad tech-support questions. If you need help with your particular Django

setup, try the `django-users mailing list`_ instead of posting a comment to the

documentation.

.. _django-users mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/django-users

In plain text

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

For offline reading, or just for convenience, you can read the Django

documentation in plain text.

If you're using an official release of Django, note that the zipped package

(tarball) of the code includes a ``docs/`` directory, which contains all the

documentation for that release.

If you're using the development version of Django (aka the Subversion "trunk"),

note that the ``docs/`` directory contains all of the documentation. You can

``svn update`` it, just as you ``svn update`` the Python code, in order to get

the latest changes.

You can check out the latest Django documentation from Subversion using this

shell command::

    svn co http://code.djangoproject.com/svn/django/trunk/docs/ django_docs

One low-tech way of taking advantage of the text documentation is by using the

Unix ``grep`` utility to search for a phrase in all of the documentation. For

example, this will show you each mention of the phrase "edit_inline" in any

Django document::

    grep edit_inline /path/to/django/docs/*.txt

Formatting

~~~~~~~~~~

The text documentation is written in ReST (ReStructured Text) format. That

means it's easy to read but is also formatted in a way that makes it easy to

convert into other formats, such as HTML. If you're interested, the script that

converts the ReST text docs into djangoproject.com's HTML lives at

`djangoproject.com/django_website/apps/docs/parts/build_documentation.py`_ in

the Django Subversion repository.

.. _djangoproject.com/django_website/apps/docs/parts/build_documentation.py: http://code.djangoproject.com/browser/djangoproject.com/django_website/apps/docs/parts/build_documentation.py

Differences between versions

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

As previously mentioned, the text documentation in our Subversion repository

contains the "latest and greatest" changes and additions. These changes often

include documentation of new features added in the Django development version

-- the Subversion ("trunk") version of Django. For that reason, it's worth

pointing out our policy on keeping straight the documentation for various

versions of the framework.

We follow this policy:

    * The primary documentation on djangoproject.com is an HTML version of the

      latest docs in Subversion. These docs always correspond to the latest

      official Django release, plus whatever features we've added/changed in

      the framework *since* the latest release.

    * As we add features to Django's development version, we try to update the

      documentation in the same Subversion commit transaction.

    * To distinguish feature changes/additions in the docs, we use the phrase

      **New in Django development version**. In practice, this means that the

      current documentation on djangoproject.com can be used by users of either

      the latest release *or* the development version.

    * Documentation for a particular Django release is frozen once the version

      has been released officially. It remains a snapshot of the docs as of the

      moment of the release. We will make exceptions to this rule in

      the case of retroactive security updates or other such retroactive

      changes. Once documentation is frozen, we add a note to the top of each

      frozen document that says "These docs are frozen for Django version XXX"

      and links to the current version of that document.

    * Once a document is frozen for a Django release, we remove comments from

      that page, in favor of having comments on the latest version of that

      document. This is for the sake of maintainability and usability, so that

      users have one, and only one, place to leave comments on a particular

      document. We realize that some people may be stuck on a previous version

      of Django, but we believe the usability problems with multiple versions

      of a document the outweigh the benefits.

    * The `main documentation Web page`_ includes links to documentation for

      all previous versions.

.. _main documentation Web page: http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/