sphinx-jsonschema

This package contains sphinx-jsonschema, an extension to Sphinx to allow authors to display a JSON Schema in their documentation.

It arose out of a personal itch and implements what I needed. Some features of JSON Schema are (not yet) implemented. Also I can imagine that other display layouts are desired.

Let me know in comments and perhaps pull requests.

Features

• Near complete support for all features of JSON Schema Draft 4.
• Supports inline schemas as well as external schemas loaded from a file or URL.
• Supports JSON Pointer notation on external resources to select a subschema.
• Supports cross references between schemas.
• Allows reStructuredText markup in title and description fields.
• Allows JSON Schema definitions in both JSON and YAML format.
• Supports the examples keyword from Draft 7.

Installation

Install the package using pip:

pip install sphinx-jsonschema

and add it to the extensions list in your conf.py:

extensions = [
    'sphinx-jsonschema'
]

Usage

The extension adds a single directive to Sphinx: jsonschema. You provide it with either an http URL to a schema or you may embed the schema inline.

Example

Display a schema fetched from a website:

.. jsonschema:: http://some.domain/with/a/path/spec.json

Display a schema located in a file with an absolute path:

.. jsonschema:: /home/leo/src/jsonschema/sample.json

Or a path relative to the referencing document:

.. jsonschema:: jsonschema/sample.json

With all three of the above you may add JSON Pointer notation to display a subschema:

.. jsonschema:: http://some.domain/with/a/path/spec.json#/path/to/schema
.. jsonschema:: /home/leo/src/jsonschema/sample.json#/path/to/schema
.. jsonschema:: jsonschema/sample.json#/path/to/schema

Alternatively you can embed the schema:

.. jsonschema::

    {
        "$schema": "This field is ignored for now. Perhaps use it to indicate schema version in display?",
        "title": "Test data set 1: **Simple type**",
        "id": "http://this.better.be.a.regular.domain",
        "description": "These data sets exercise `JSON Schema <http://json-schema.org>`_ constructions and show how they are rendered.\n\nNote that it is possible to embed reStructuredText elements in strings.",
        "type": "string",
        "minLength": 10,
        "maxLength": 100,
        "pattern": "^[A-Z]+$"
    }

This notation does not support JSON Pointer.

JSON Schema extension

$$target

sphinx-jsonschema extends JSON Schema with the $$target key.

This key is only recognized at the outermost object of the schema.

JSON Schema uses the $ref key in combination with the $id key to cross-reference between schemas.

Sphinx-jsonschema ignores $id but uses the value of $ref to create a reStructuredText :ref: role.

For this to work you need to mark the target schema with the $$target key, the value of which must be identical to the value of the corresponding $ref key.

So a schema:

{
    "title": "Schema 1",
    "$ref": "#/definitions/schema2"
}

will have its $ref replaced by a link pointing to:

{
    "title": "Schema 2",
    "$$target": "#/definitions/schema2"
    ...
}

Occasionally a schema will be addressed from several other schemas using different $ref values. In that case the value of $$target should be a list enumerating all different references to the schema.

$$description

sphinx-jsonschema extends JSON Schema with the $$description key.

This key serves the same purpose as the description key and can be used in the same way. It differs from description in that it allows an array of strings as value instead of a single string.

This allows you to write:

{
   ...
   "description": "+------------+------------+-----------+ \n| Header 1   | Header 2   | Header 3  | \n+============+============+===========+ \n| body row 1 | column 2   | column 3  | \n+------------+------------+-----------+ \n| body row 2 | Cells may span columns.| \n+------------+------------+-----------+ \n| body row 3 | Cells may  | - Cells   | \n+------------+ span rows. | - contain | \n| body row 4 |            | - blocks. | \n+------------+------------+-----------+",
   ...
}

as:

{
   ...
   "$$description": [
      "+------------+------------+-----------+",
      "| Header 1   | Header 2   | Header 3  |",
      "+============+============+===========+",
      "| body row 1 | column 2   | column 3  |",
      "+------------+------------+-----------+",
      "| body row 2 | Cells may span columns.|",
      "+------------+------------+-----------+",
      "| body row 3 | Cells may  | - Cells   |",
      "+------------+ span rows. | - contain |",
      "| body row 4 |            | - blocks. |",
      "+------------+------------+-----------+"
   ],
   ...
}

Which clearly is much more readable and maintainable.

Licence

Copyright Leo Noordergraaf, All rights reserved.

This software is made available under the GPL v3.

Changelog

Version 1.15

Add support for the dependencies key.

Versions 1.12 and 1.13 and 1.14

Solved several minor bugs.

Version 1.11

Solved a divergence of the standard reported by bbasic (https://github.com/bbasics).

Version 1.10

Ivan Vysotskyy (https://github.com/ivysotskyi) contributed the idea to use an array with the description key resulting in the new $$description key.

Version 1.9

Tom Walter (https://github.com/EvilPuppetMaster) contributed the example support.

Version 1.4

Chris Holdgraf (https://github.com/choldgraf) contributed Python3 and yaml support.

Version 1.3

Add unicode support.

Version 1.2

Improved formatting.

Version 1.1

Implemented schema cross referencing.

Version 1.0

Initial release of a functioning plugin.