ReStructuredText

reStructuredText is a lightweight markup language intended to be highly readable in source format. Its formal name indicates that it is a "revised, reworked, and reinterpreted StructuredText." [cite web
last = Goodger
first = David
authorlink =
coauthors = [mailto:[e-mail]]
title = Docutils FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
work =
publisher = Docutils Project
date = 2008-01-05
url = http://docutils.sourceforge.net/FAQ.html#why-is-it-called-restructuredtext
format =
doi =
accessdate = 2008-06-25 ]

reStructuredText is sometimes abbreviated as RST; while sometimes abbreviated as ReST, this can create confusion with REST, an unrelated technology.

The reference parser is implemented as a component of the Docutils text processing framework in the Python programming language, but other parsers are available. It was a re-implementation and extension of the StructuredText and Setext lightweight markup systems, [cite web
last = Goodger
first = David
authorlink =
coauthors = [mailto:[e-mail]]
title = reStructuredText: Markup Syntax and Parser Component of Docutils
work =
publisher = Docutils Project
date = 2006-09-22
url = http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
format =
doi =
accessdate = 2008-06-11 ] and was meant in particular to address the [http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/dev/rst/problems.html Problems with StructuredText] .

reStructuredText is commonly used for technical documentation, for example, in documentation of Python libraries. However, reStructuredText is suitable for a wide range of texts.

Examples of markup

Headers:

Section Header =

Subsection Header -----------------

Lists:

- A bullet list item - Second item - A sub item - Third item

1) An enumerated list item 2) Second item a) Sub item i) Sub-sub item 3) Third item

Named links:

A sentence with links to Wikipedia_ and the `Linux kernel archive`_. .. _Wikipedia: http://www.wikipedia.org/ .. _Linux kernel archive: http://www.kernel.org/

Anonymous links:

Another sentence with an `anonymous link to the Python website`__. __ http://www.python.org/

ee also

* List of lightweight markup languages

References and External links

* [http://commandline.org.uk/python/2008/may/17/introduction-restructuredtext/ An Introduction to ReStructuredText]
* [http://www.hosting4u.cz/jbar/rest/rest.html reST online renderer]
* [http://jrst.labs.libre-entreprise.org/ JRst] Java reStructuredText Parser with Docbook and HTML renderer
* [http://rst2a.com/ rst2a] Web service for rendering reStructuredText documents to a variety of formats
* [http://skawina.eu.org/mikolaj/vst.html VST] reStructuredText for Vim (text editor)
* [http://sphinx.pocoo.org/ Sphinx] - creates web pages from reStructuredText (used by Python.org)