Building docs SyntaxError

[phaebz]

I followed this advice but on python make.py html I get

Running Sphinx v1.2b3
Exception occurred while building, starting debugger:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.3/site-packages/sphinx/cmdline.py", line 245, in main
    warningiserror, tags, verbosity, parallel)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.3/site-packages/sphinx/application.py", line 119, in __init__
    self.setup_extension(extension)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.3/site-packages/sphinx/application.py", line 283, in setup_extension
    mod = __import__(extension, None, None, ['setup'])
  File "/Users/user/Optional/pandas/doc/sphinxext/numpydoc.py", line 40
    title_re = re.compile(ur'^\s*[#*=]{4,}\n[a-z0-9 -]+\n[#*=]{4,}\s*',
                                                                     ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
> /usr/local/lib/python3.3/site-packages/sphinx/application.py(283)setup_extension()
-> mod = __import__(extension, None, None, ['setup'])
(Pdb) 

I looked into doc/sphinxtest/numpydoc.py and noticed the u'' strings in the re.* functions. This incompatibility is not documented. ff52cbb says something about "py3 compat", but I am not sure if the "revert" refers to py3 compat or just to "docs".

[jorisvandenbossche]

The codebase is made python3 compatible a time ago, but I don't know if somebody also really tried to build the docs on python 3 (see eg #5488). So there could certainly be some issues.

[cpcloud]

IIRC there are compatibility issues with the sphinx plugins, if anyone is interested in getting them to work. Probably just requires a sprinkling of pandas.compat

[jorisvandenbossche]

or, replacing it with the upstream IPython version, which should already be python 3 compatible. See #5221

[metakermit]

Me and @phaebz started working on a temporary solution, so that we can contribute to the documentation using Python3, before #5221 gets resolved. I pushed the initial work in PR #5530 .

[phaebz]

@Kermit666 and I are taking the route of "sprinkling with pandas.compat" since we think this might be easier/faster than #5221 as there was no recent activity there. Correct me if I am wrong.

[phaebz]

Closing this since further Python 3 compat work for building documentation will be pursued elsewhere.