mkdocstrings-matlab

A MATLAB handler for mkdocstrings.

The MATLAB handler uses maxx to collect documentation from MATLAB source code, which in turn uses Tree-sitter and its MATLAB parser.

You can install this handler by specifying it as a dependency:

pyproject.toml

# PEP 621 dependencies declaration
# adapt to your dependencies manager
[project]
dependencies = [
    "mkdocstrings-matlab>=0.X.Y",
]

Preview

Let's us quickly see how auto-documentation works with mkdocstrings-matlab:

Function making use of Argument Validation in namespace +mynamespace

function output = typed_function(input, options)
    % Example function with typed inputs and outputs
    arguments (Input)
        input (1,1) string % The input variable
        options.keyword (1,1) double = 0 % An optional keyword argument
    end
    arguments (Output)
        output (1,:) char % The output variable
    end
    output = char(input);
end

Given the function above, the rendered documentation here is created from the following markdown document file,

docs/api.md

::: mynamespace.typed_function
    options:
      parse_arguments: true
      separate_signature: true
      show_signature_types: true
      signature_crossrefs: true

mynamespace.typed_function

(input: string, keyword: double = 0)

Example function with typed inputs and outputs

Input arguments:

• input (string) –

  The input variable

Name-value arguments:

• keyword (double) –

  An optional keyword argument

Output arguments:

• output ( char ) –

  The output variable

Note

Syntax highlighting of argument blocks will be incorrect with the default configuration due to the outdated MATLAB lexer in Pygments and will be resolved after our PR is merged.

In the meantime, the correct syntax highlighing can be configured by adding our branch as the dependency in pyproject.toml

pyproject.toml

dependencies = [
    "pygments @ git+https://github.com/watermarkhu/pygments.git@matlab",
]

Features

• 🤖 Data collection from source code: collection of the object-tree and the docstrings is done thanks to Tree-sitter.

• ✨ Support for argument validation blocks: Tree-sitter collects your function and method argument validation blocks to display input and output argument types and default values. It is even able to automatically add cross-references to other objects from your API, and links to MathWorks documentation are generated for MATLAB builtin classes.

• 🔁 Recursive documentation of MATLAB namespaces and folders: just add + to the identifer for namespaces or the relative path for folder, and you get documentation for the entire directory. You don't need to inject documentation for each class, function, and script. Additionaly, the directory documentation will be either extracted from the Contents.m or the readme.md file at the root of the namespace or folder.

• 📄 Multiple docstring-styles support: common support for Google-style, Numpydoc-style, and Sphinx-style docstrings. See Griffe's documentation on docstrings support.

• ⚠️ Admonition support in Google docstrings: blocks like Note: or Warning: will be transformed to their admonition equivalent. We do not support nested admonitions in docstrings!

• 🔗 Every object has a TOC entry: we render a heading for each object, meaning MkDocs picks them into the Table of Contents, which is nicely displayed by the Material theme. Thanks to mkdocstrings cross-reference ability, you can reference other objects within your docstrings, with the classic Markdown syntax: [this object][namespace.subnamespace.object] or directly with [namespace.subnamespace.object][]

• 📺 Source code display: mkdocstrings can add a collapsible div containing the highlighted source code of the MATLAB object.