issue such command 'mermaid' cannot be run

[thjensuit]

Hi everyone,

I have installed sphinxcontrib-mermaid extension as the following guide: https://github.com/mgaitan/sphinxcontrib-mermaid

in a "mermaid-template.rst" file I made a code such below

Mermaid Template
#################

.. mermaid::

    graph LR
    A[Hard edge] -->B(Round edge)
        B --> C{Decision}
        C -->|One| D[Result one]
        C -->|Two| E[Result two]

When running sphinx that threw out a warning such below and the flowchart was not generated:

warning: command 'mermaid' cannot be run (needed for mermaid output), check the mermaid_cmd setting.

After that I still installed mermaid-cli as the following guide: https://knsv.github.io/mermaid/#mermaid-cli8

But the warning was still exists and was not generated the flowchart.
May anyone help me in this case?

P.S:

• OS: window 8.1
• Sphinx: 1.4.8
• PhantomJS: 2.1.1
• Mermaid setup success with command such as mermaid template.mmd or mermaid --help

Thank you for your watching,
Best Regards

[thjensuit]

Quoted from @mgaitan

hey @thjensuit, please open this issue in the sphinx-mermaid's tracker, https://github.com/mgaitan/sphinxcontrib-mermaid/issues

meanwhile, could you find the absolute path of mermaid command, and set this as the mermaid_cmd variable in your project's conf.py?

[thjensuit]

Hi @mgaitan,

meanwhile, could you find the absolute path of mermaid command, and set this as the mermaid_cmd variable in your project's conf.py?

I have set on $PATH of the OS before.

You mean that I set within conf.py such:
mermaid_cmd = 'C:\\Users\\thjen_000\\AppData\\Roaming\\npm\\node_modules\\mermaid'

Then when running it throws out a exception as below:

Correct me if I make a wrong way.

[mgaitan]

are you sure there is no a missing .exe at the end?

Do this:

• save you diagram markup in a file test.mmd

Then try to compile it using vanilla mermaid-cli from the command line

C:\Users\thjen_000\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\mermaid.exe test.mmd

does it work?

[tylerlong]

Mermaid command line has been replaced by https://github.com/mermaidjs/mermaid.cli

[MatinF]

I believe the issue I'm facing is similar to this one potentially

[mgaitan]

@MatinF please, help to debug this. mermaid's cli is working on your system, outside this plugin?

[MatinF]

Yes I can use it as per their testing examples to convert a mermaid file outside of the Sphinx context using the cli without issues

[mgaitan]

give me an example of a command line, please

[MatinF]

I've tested both with global and local install. For example, if I have the below content:

graph TD
A[Christmas] -->|Get money| B(Go shopping)
B --> C{Let me think}
C -->|One| D[Laptop]
C -->|Two| E[iPhone]
C -->|Three| F[Car]

inside a file, test.mmd, then I can run below via the command prompt:

mmdc -i test.mmd -o output.png

In my Sphinx conf.py I've added the below, with the path being to the local installation of mmdc:

extensions = [
    "sphinxcontrib.mermaid",
]

mermaid_cmd = "C:\\Users\\marti\\Documents\\sphinx-test\\node_modules\\.bin\\mmdc"
mermaid_output_format = "png"

I've also raised this separately in issue #42 .

best,
Martin

[mgaitan]

try this. set the command line as a raw string

mermaid_cmd = r"C:\Users\marti\Documents\sphinx-test\node_modules\.bin\mmdc"

if that fails, try to modify the Popen, here

https://github.com/mgaitan/sphinxcontrib-mermaid/blob/master/sphinxcontrib/mermaid.py#L172-L174

passing and additional argument shell=True

[MatinF]

Hi mgaitan, the first part did not work - but adding shell=True to the file you recommended did resolve it! :-) Thanks a ton!

[MatinF]

One other, perhaps somewhat related, question: Now that I have the basic functionality working, I was looking to try and add a custom configuration file in order to tweak the width of the charts (in PNG it seems like the width is too small). To do this, I tried to create below addition to the conf.py:

mermaid_sequence_config = (
    r"C:\Users\marti\Documents\sphinx-test\docs\mermaid-config.json"
)

However, doing so results in below error log:

# Sphinx version: 3.0.0
# Python version: 3.7.3 (CPython)
# Docutils version: 0.14 
# Jinja2 version: 2.11.1
# Last messages:
#   done
#   checking consistency...
#   done
#   preparing documents...
#   done
#   writing output... [ 20%] configure/configure
#   writing output... [ 40%] index
#   writing output... [ 60%] introduction/about
#   writing output... [ 80%] introduction/about/about
#   writing output... [100%] introduction/introduction
# Loaded extensions:
#   sphinx.ext.mathjax (3.0.0) from c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinx\ext\mathjax.py
#   sphinxcontrib.applehelp (1.0.2) from c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinxcontrib\applehelp\__init__.py
#   sphinxcontrib.devhelp (1.0.2) from c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinxcontrib\devhelp\__init__.py
#   sphinxcontrib.htmlhelp (1.0.3) from c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinxcontrib\htmlhelp\__init__.py
#   sphinxcontrib.serializinghtml (1.1.4) from c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinxcontrib\serializinghtml\__init__.py
#   sphinxcontrib.qthelp (1.0.3) from c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinxcontrib\qthelp\__init__.py
#   alabaster (0.7.12) from c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\alabaster\__init__.py
#   recommonmark (0.6.0) from c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\recommonmark\__init__.py
#   sphinx.ext.todo (3.0.0) from c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinx\ext\todo.py
#   sphinx.ext.githubpages (3.0.0) from c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinx\ext\githubpages.py
#   sphinxcontrib.mermaid (3.0.0) from c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinxcontrib\mermaid.py
#   sphinx_selective_exclude.eager_only (1.0.2) from c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinx_selective_exclude\eager_only.py
#   sphinx_selective_exclude.search_auto_exclude (1.0.2) from c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinx_selective_exclude\search_auto_exclude.py
#   sphinx_selective_exclude.modindex_exclude (1.0.2) from c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinx_selective_exclude\modindex_exclude.py
#   romnnn_sphinx_press_theme (unknown version) from c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\romnnn_sphinx_press_theme\__init__.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinx\cmd\build.py", line 280, in build_main
    app.build(args.force_all, filenames)
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinx\application.py", line 348, in build
    self.builder.build_update()
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinx\builders\__init__.py", line 299, in build_update
    len(to_build))
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinx\builders\__init__.py", line 361, in build
    self.write(docnames, list(updated_docnames), method)
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinx\builders\__init__.py", line 535, in write
    self._write_serial(sorted(docnames))
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinx\builders\__init__.py", line 545, in _write_serial
    self.write_doc(docname, doctree)
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinx\builders\html\__init__.py", line 597, in write_doc
    self.docwriter.write(doctree, destination)
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\docutils\writers\__init__.py", line 80, in write
    self.translate()
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinx\writers\html.py", line 71, in translate
    self.document.walkabout(visitor)
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\docutils\nodes.py", line 174, in walkabout
    if child.walkabout(visitor):
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\docutils\nodes.py", line 174, in walkabout
    if child.walkabout(visitor):
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\docutils\nodes.py", line 174, in walkabout
    if child.walkabout(visitor):
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\docutils\nodes.py", line 166, in walkabout
    visitor.dispatch_visit(self)
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinx\util\docutils.py", line 468, in dispatch_visit
    method(node)
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinxcontrib\mermaid.py", line 309, in html_visit_mermaid
    render_mm_html(self, node, node["code"], node["options"])
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinxcontrib\mermaid.py", line 277, in render_mm_html
    fname, outfn = render_mm(self, code, options, format, prefix)
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\site-packages\sphinxcontrib\mermaid.py", line 190, in render_mm
    json.dump(self.builder.config.mermaid_sequence_config, seq)
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\json\__init__.py", line 180, in dump
    fp.write(chunk)
  File "c:\users\marti\appdata\local\programs\python\python37\lib\tempfile.py", line 481, in func_wrapper
    return func(*args, **kwargs)
TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'

Should the config be parsed in another way?

I figured maybe a simpler alternative would be to use the option mermaid_params = ["--width", "1200", "--backgroundColor", "transparent"], but it seems like the mermaid_params are not used.

[wlievens]

Was the shell=True argument not added? I'm having trouble getting this suggestion to work.