[PATCH 0/1] sphinx-build-wrapper: add support for skipping sphinx-build

From: Mauro Carvalho Chehab

Date: Sun Sep 21 2025 - 05:13:43 EST


Hi Jon,

This patch adds support for not running sphinx-build at the wrapper
tool. It was requested by Akira, who wanted to be able to ignore
Sphinx errors during latex build and still try to build PDF.

This patch is against docs/build-script and applies after the 3 patch
series I sent yesterday:

https://lore.kernel.org/linux-doc/cover.1758361087.git.mchehab+huawei@xxxxxxxxxx/


While Akira's original intention is to have pdfdocs target depend on
latexdocs, IMO, this is overkill, as probably only Akira and a couple
of other developers might want to have such behavior.

See, after all changes, the makefile rule for *all* doc build targets
is simple:

$(Q)@$(srctree)/tools/docs/sphinx-pre-install --version-check
+$(Q)$(PYTHON3) $(BUILD_WRAPPER) $@ \
--sphinxdirs="$(SPHINXDIRS)" $(RUSTDOC) \
--builddir="$(BUILDDIR)" --deny-vf=$(FONTS_CONF_DENY_VF) \
--theme=$(DOCS_THEME) --css=$(DOCS_CSS) --paper=$(PAPER)

After applying patch 1 from this series, it is really easy to replicate
"make -i" by writing a small script that does:

tools/docs/sphinx-pre-install --version-check
tools/docs/sphinx-build-wrapper latexdocs || echo "LaTeX build failed, but we'll try build PDF anyway"
tools/docs/sphinx-build-wrapper -s pdfdocs

So, I'm not proposing doing any changes to Makefile, as IMHO, for
most people, the intermediate steps don't matter.

Mauro Carvalho Chehab (1):
tools/docs/sphinx-build-wrapper: allow skipping sphinx-build step

tools/docs/sphinx-build-wrapper | 18 ++++++++++++------
1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

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2.51.0