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Design of the Package

Design of the Package

This page documents some design decisions that were made when building this sphinx extension.

sphinx-exercise includes:

  1. directives

  2. nodes

  3. post_transforms

  4. integrations with sphinx.env

Directives

See Syntax Guide for futher details on the available directives and options

Nodes

The nodes support the directives:

  1. exercise_node

  2. exercise_enumerable_node

  3. solution_node

as well as custom title infrastructure:

  1. exercise_title

  2. exercise_subtitle

  3. solution_title

  4. solution_subtitle

and support for :numref: references to enumerated exercise nodes in the LaTeX context by resolving the node title numbering:

  1. exercise_latex_number_reference

The title and reference nodes are used internally by the directives and are then removed in post_transforms negating the need for any custom translator methods. The use of custom nodes allows for simpler detection of objects by this extension, rather than catering for additional items that may be added by other sphinx components.

Post Transforms

The post_transforms run in the following order:

  1. UpdateReferencesToEnumerated (priority = 5, before pending_xref are resolved)

  2. ResolveTitlesInExercises (priority = 20)

  3. ResolveTitlesInSolutions (priority = 21)

  4. ResolveLinkTextToSolutions (priority = 22)

These post_transforms are setup to resolve in Exercise -> Solution -> References ordering. Any :ref: made to an enumerated exercise node are converted into numref references prior to pending_xref objects are resolved by sphinx.

This is aligned with most use cases in a document. In the case of solutions if the target node (title) has not been resolved, this is checked and then resolved as required.

Design Decision: It was decided to integrate with :ref: and :numref: roles to support both reference styles to exercise and solution directives. The post_transforms are required to make adjustments the the sphinx abstract syntax tree (AST) to support :numref: and the resolve titles in exercise and solution admonitions. This is required as components of numref are resolved at the translator phase for html and is activated essentially by default for LaTeX but leaves the numbering to the LaTeX builder such as pdflatex.

Additional Notes

Package Registry sphinx.env.sphinx_exercise_registry

This package includes a registry of all exercise and solution nodes that are parsed.

This registry includes nodes referenced by their label:

self.env.sphinx_exercise_registry[label] = {
    "type": self.name,
    "docname": self.env.docname,
    "node": node,
}

and records the type, docname where the node is parsed, and the node object.

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