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Docutils Transforms

Author: David Goodger
Contact: docutils-develop@lists.sourceforge.net
Revision: 9051
Date: 2022-04-02
Copyright: This document has been placed in the public domain.

Contents

Transforms change the document tree in-place, add to the tree, or prune it. Transforms resolve references and footnote numbers, process interpreted text, and do other context-sensitive processing. Each transform is a subclass of docutils.transforms.Transform.

There are transforms added by components, others (e.g. parts.Contents) are added by the parser, if a corresponding directive is found in the document.

To add a transform, components (objects inheriting from Docutils.Component like Readers, Parsers, Writers, Input, Output) overwrite the get_transforms() method of their base class. After the Reader has finished processing, the Publisher calls Transformer.populate_from_components() with a list of components and all transforms returned by the component's get_transforms() method are stored in a transformer object attached to the document tree.

For more about transforms and the Transformer object, see also PEP 258. (The default_transforms() attribute of component classes mentioned there is deprecated. Use the get_transforms() method instead.)

Transforms Listed in Priority Order

Transform classes each have a default_priority attribute which is used by the Transformer to apply transforms in order (low to high). The default priority can be overridden when adding transforms to the Transformer object.

Transform: module.Class Added By Priority
misc.class "class" (d/p) 210
references.Substitutions standalone (r), pep (r) 220
references.PropagateTargets standalone (r), pep (r) 260
frontmatter.DocTitle standalone (r) 320
frontmatter.DocInfo standalone (r) 340
frontmatter.SectSubTitle standalone (r) 350
peps.Headers pep (r) 360
peps.Contents pep (r) 380
universal.StripClasses... Writer (w) 420
references.AnonymousHyperlinks standalone (r), pep (r) 440
references.IndirectHyperlinks standalone (r), pep (r) 460
peps.TargetNotes pep (r) 520
references.TargetNotes peps.TargetNotes (t/p) 0
misc.CallBack peps.TargetNotes (t/p) 1
references.TargetNotes "target-notes" (d/p) 540
references.Footnotes standalone (r), pep (r) 620
references.ExternalTargets standalone (r), pep (r) 640
references.InternalTargets standalone (r), pep (r) 660
parts.SectNum "sectnum" (d/p) 710
parts.Contents "contents" (d/p), peps.Contents (t/p) 720
universal.StripComments Reader (r) 740
peps.PEPZero peps.Headers (t/p) 760
components.Filter not used 780
universal.Decorations Reader (r) 820
misc.Transitions standalone (r), pep (r) 830
universal.ExposeInternals Reader (r) 840
references.DanglingReferences standalone (r), pep (r) 850
universal.SmartQuotes Parser 855
universal.Messages Writer (w) 860
universal.FilterMessages Writer (w) 870
universal.TestMessages DocutilsTestSupport 880
writer_aux.Compound not used, to be removed 910
writer_aux.Admonitions html4css1 (w), latex2e (w) 920
misc.CallBack n/a 990

Key:

Transform Priority Range Categories

Priority  
From To Category
0 99 immediate execution (added by another transform)
100 199 very early (non-standard)
200 299 very early
300 399 early
400 699 main
700 799 late
800 899 very late
900 999 very late (non-standard)

Transforms added by components

readers.Reader:
universal.Decorations,
universal.ExposeInternals,
universal.StripComments
readers.ReReader:
None
readers.standalone.Reader:
references.Substitutions,
references.PropagateTargets,
frontmatter.DocTitle,
frontmatter.SectionSubTitle,
frontmatter.DocInfo,
references.AnonymousHyperlinks,
references.IndirectHyperlinks,
references.Footnotes,
references.ExternalTargets,
references.InternalTargets,
references.DanglingReferences,
misc.Transitions
readers.pep.Reader:
references.Substitutions,
references.PropagateTargets,
references.AnonymousHyperlinks,
references.IndirectHyperlinks,
references.Footnotes,
references.ExternalTargets,
references.InternalTargets,
references.DanglingReferences,
misc.Transitions,
peps.Headers,
peps.Contents,
peps.TargetNotes
parsers.rst.Parser
universal.SmartQuotes
writers.Writer:
universal.Messages,
universal.FilterMessages,
universal.StripClassesAndElements
writers.UnfilteredWriter
None
writers.latex2e.Writer
writer_aux.Admonitions
writers.html4css1.Writer:
writer_aux.Admonitions
writers.odf_odt.Writer:
removes references.DanglingReferences