How to Link Local Python Help Documents Using Sphinx - python-sphinx

Question

How can I get my Sphinx RST file to include a link to the "contents.html" Python help page?
More Details
I have an RST help document (index.rst) in an offline environment. I have downloaded and successfully built the Python documentation using the command make.bat html. I then copied this documentation to C:\Temp\PyDoc.
I then updated my conf.py file to include the following Intersphinx mapping:
intersphinx_mapping = {'python': ('C:/Temp/PyDoc', None)}
Then, within my index.rst file, I have something like:
Contents:
.. toctree::
:maxdepth: 1
:ref:`Python <python:contents>`
The Python link is removed from the resulting documentation with the warning message:
WARNING: toctree contains reference to nonexisting document ':ref:`Python <python:contents>`'
I have verified that the output contains the text:
loading intersphinx inventory from C:/Temp/PyDoc/objects.inv...
I have also verified that the "contents" tag exists within the Python documentation by running:
python -m sphinx.ext.intersphinx "C:/Temp/PyDoc/objects.inv" | findstr contents
Which generates output that includes the line:
contents Python Documentation contents : contents.html
Does anyone know how to reference this external documentation from my RST file?

Answer 1

In the configuration for intersphinx, the dict's key's value is a tuple, which consists of comma-separated values, not colon-separated.
intersphinx_mapping = {'python': ('C:/Temp/PyDoc', None)}
EDIT
toctree entries need a valid target, which can be a file relative to the current file or absolute as starting from the documentation root where your conf.py resides. Also the target may be an URL. I suspect that the HTML you made is none of the above, so you need to move it to a place where Sphinx can find it.
The syntax should be for documentation, not a Python object, because the page is a table of contents. I did not try this example because I don't have the Python docs downloaded and built, so I doubt it will work.
.. toctree::
:maxdepth: 1
:doc:`Python <python:contents>`
Or you can just use the URL (or similar relative or absolute target). This works for me with a fully qualified URL.
.. toctree::
:maxdepth: 1
Python <https://docs.python.org/3/contents.html>
Finally you could try an include, but I think that is not what you really want.