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Add a filename-prefix option to the Sphinx plot directive #28187

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@asmeurer asmeurer commented May 8, 2024

This allows specifying the output base name of the generated image files.

This is required to use the plot directive with MyST, because the directive is broken with MyST (an issue I don't want to fix), requiring the use of eval-rst. But the way eval-rst works, the incrementing counter is not maintained across different eval-rst directives, meaning if you try to include multiple of them in the same document, the images will overwrite each other. This allows you to manually work around this with something like

```{eval-rst}
.. plot::
   :filename-prefix: plot-1

   ...
```

```{eval-rst}
.. plot::
   :filename-prefix: plot-2

   ...
```

Aside from this, it's generally useful to be able to specify the image name used for a plot, as a more informative name can be used rather than just <document-name>-1.png.

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@tacaswell tacaswell added this to the v3.9.1 milestone May 8, 2024
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asmeurer commented May 8, 2024

For anyone interested, the error you get if you try to use the plot directive with MyST directly is ERROR: MockStateMachine has not yet implemented attribute 'insert_input'.

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asmeurer commented May 8, 2024

Ah, I didn't realize there actually already are unit tests for this. Let me update that.

This allows specifying the output base name of the generated image files. The
name can include '{counter}', which is automatically string formatted to an
incrementing counter. The default if it is not specified is left intact as
the current behavior, which is to use the base name of the provided script or
the RST document.

This is required to use the plot directive with MyST, because the directive is
broken with MyST (an issue I don't want to fix), requiring the use of
eval-rst. But the way eval-rst works, the incrementing counter is not
maintained across different eval-rst directives, meaning if you try to include
multiple of them in the same document, the images will overwrite each other.
This allows you to manually work around this with something like

```{eval-rst}
.. plot::
   :output-base-name: plot-1

   ...
```

```{eval-rst}
.. plot::
   :output-base-name: plot-2

   ...
```

Aside from this, it's generally useful to be able to specify the image name
used for a plot, as a more informative name can be used rather than just
'<document-name>-1.png'.
@asmeurer asmeurer force-pushed the output-base-name branch from 7fb0e35 to 615017a Compare May 8, 2024 22:20
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asmeurer commented May 8, 2024

For me, the Sphinx extension tests fail on main

        writing output... [ 20%] included_plot_21
E
E       stderr:
E
E       Exception occurred:
E         File "/Users/aaronmeurer/miniconda3/envs/ndindex-matplotlib-dev/lib/python3.12/shutil.py", line 260, in copyfile
E           with open(src, 'rb') as fsrc:
E                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
E       FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/private/var/folders/wc/dppcpmxs1tlb36nqcw853wkm0000gn/T/pytest-of-aaronmeurer/pytest-2/test_srcset_version0/plot_directive/included_plot_21-1.2x.png'
E       The full traceback has been saved in /var/folders/wc/dppcpmxs1tlb36nqcw853wkm0000gn/T/sphinx-err-nut6ujx8.log, if you want to report the issue to the developers.
E       Please also report this if it was a user error, so that a better error message can be provided next time.
E       A bug report can be filed in the tracker at <https://github.com/sphinx-doc/sphinx/issues>. Thanks!
# Platform:         darwin; (macOS-14.4.1-arm64-arm-64bit)
# Sphinx version:   7.2.6
# Python version:   3.12.3 (CPython)
# Docutils version: 0.20.1
# Jinja2 version:   3.1.4
# Pygments version: 2.18.0

# Last messages:
#   
#   copying static files...
#   done
#   copying extra files...
#   done
#   done
#   �[2K
#   writing output... [ 20%]
#   included_plot_21
#   

# Loaded extensions:
#   sphinx.ext.mathjax (7.2.6)
#   alabaster (0.7.16)
#   sphinxcontrib.applehelp (1.0.8)
#   sphinxcontrib.devhelp (1.0.6)
#   sphinxcontrib.htmlhelp (2.0.5)
#   sphinxcontrib.serializinghtml (1.1.10)
#   sphinxcontrib.qthelp (1.0.7)
#   matplotlib.sphinxext.plot_directive (3.10.0.dev151+gce15014066)
#   matplotlib.sphinxext.figmpl_directive (3.10.0.dev151+gce15014066)

# Traceback:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/aaronmeurer/miniconda3/envs/ndindex-matplotlib-dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/sphinx/cmd/build.py", line 298, in build_main
    app.build(args.force_all, args.filenames)
  File "/Users/aaronmeurer/miniconda3/envs/ndindex-matplotlib-dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/sphinx/application.py", line 355, in build
    self.builder.build_update()
  File "/Users/aaronmeurer/miniconda3/envs/ndindex-matplotlib-dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/sphinx/builders/__init__.py", line 293, in build_update
    self.build(to_build,
  File "/Users/aaronmeurer/miniconda3/envs/ndindex-matplotlib-dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/sphinx/builders/__init__.py", line 363, in build
    self.write(docnames, list(updated_docnames), method)
  File "/Users/aaronmeurer/miniconda3/envs/ndindex-matplotlib-dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/sphinx/builders/__init__.py", line 571, in write
    self._write_serial(sorted(docnames))
  File "/Users/aaronmeurer/miniconda3/envs/ndindex-matplotlib-dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/sphinx/builders/__init__.py", line 581, in _write_serial
    self.write_doc(docname, doctree)
  File "/Users/aaronmeurer/miniconda3/envs/ndindex-matplotlib-dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/sphinx/builders/html/__init__.py", line 649, in write_doc
    self.docwriter.write(doctree, destination)
  File "/Users/aaronmeurer/miniconda3/envs/ndindex-matplotlib-dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/docutils/writers/__init__.py", line 80, in write
    self.translate()
  File "/Users/aaronmeurer/miniconda3/envs/ndindex-matplotlib-dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/sphinx/writers/html.py", line 36, in translate
    self.document.walkabout(visitor)
  File "/Users/aaronmeurer/miniconda3/envs/ndindex-matplotlib-dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/docutils/nodes.py", line 186, in walkabout
    if child.walkabout(visitor):
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/aaronmeurer/miniconda3/envs/ndindex-matplotlib-dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/docutils/nodes.py", line 178, in walkabout
    visitor.dispatch_visit(self)
  File "/Users/aaronmeurer/miniconda3/envs/ndindex-matplotlib-dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/sphinx/util/docutils.py", line 582, in dispatch_visit
    method(node)
  File "/Users/aaronmeurer/Documents/matplotlib/lib/matplotlib/sphinxext/figmpl_directive.py", line 174, in visit_figmpl_html
    imagedir, srcset, rel = _copy_images_figmpl(self, node)
                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/aaronmeurer/Documents/matplotlib/lib/matplotlib/sphinxext/figmpl_directive.py", line 163, in _copy_images_figmpl
    shutil.copyfile(abspath, imagedir / name)
  File "/Users/aaronmeurer/miniconda3/envs/ndindex-matplotlib-dev/lib/python3.12/shutil.py", line 260, in copyfile
    with open(src, 'rb') as fsrc:
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/private/var/folders/wc/dppcpmxs1tlb36nqcw853wkm0000gn/T/pytest-of-aaronmeurer/pytest-2/test_srcset_version0/plot_directive/included_plot_21-1.2x.png'

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asmeurer commented May 9, 2024

I added a test that will hopefully work. I'm having difficulty getting some of the tests to run successfully locally right now, but I believe the asserts I added work. If CI fails I might need some help figuring out why things aren't working on my computer.

asmeurer added a commit to asmeurer/ndindex that referenced this pull request May 9, 2024
else:
source_file_name = rst_file
code = textwrap.dedent("\n".join(map(str, content)))
counter = document.attributes.get('_plot_counter', 0) + 1
document.attributes['_plot_counter'] = counter
base, ext = os.path.splitext(os.path.basename(source_file_name))
output_base = '%s-%d.py' % (base, counter)
if options['output-base-name']:
output_base = options['output-base-name'].format(counter=counter)
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could we prefix in the script/rst file name here as well? If you have duplicate output names in the same rst file that is a quick search to find and fix, but if you have the collision across multiple rst files it could be much more annoying to find where they are colliding.

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Well my thinking here is also that users should have full control over the filename that is produced. If we always inject something into the name, that won't be the case. For instance, if you right-click and save a plot, this will be the filename used for the image.

Really, we need to figure out how to error if the same name is used twice. My naive idea of checking if the file already exists doesn't work because it could just exist from a previous build. It's probably possible to keep a global list of already used filenames, but I'll have to figure out how to make that work with partial Sphinx rebuilds.

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What version of pytest are you using? I could not reproduce this issue last night.

@tacaswell tacaswell modified the milestones: v3.9.1, v3.10.0 May 9, 2024
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I am 👍 on this idea, one small question about the naming (I see both sides of forcing an additional prefix or not).

I re-milestoned this for 3.10 as it is a new feature which seems too big to put in via a micro release and it is too late to get this is under the wire for 3.9.

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asmeurer commented May 9, 2024

What version of pytest are you using? I could not reproduce this issue last night.

It's possible my local build of matplotlib is broken somehow. pytest also does a really annoying thing when I run this test on my Mac where it switches to another space like it is opening a GUI window. I also had to run

sudo mkdir -p /tmp/.X11-unix
sudo chmod 1777 /tmp/.X11-unix

or the tests would just error completely with some strange error (which fortunately ChatGPT was able to figure out).

I tried my best to follow your dev instructions, but some of the steps didn't work (e.g., the dev requirements.txt doesn't actually list any build requirements).

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The reason I suspect pytest is this path: '/private/var/folders/wc/dppcpmxs1tlb36nqcw853wkm0000gn/T/pytest-of-aaronmeurer/pytest-2/test_srcset_version0/plot_directive/included_plot_21-1.2x.png'

What was the strange error? I'm really not sure why you need X11 stuff for the tests of the sphinx extension to run...


We have an open PR to fix the dev install instructions. The conda environment file works, most of the regular devs who don't use conda know what to do, and we explicitly install them on CI so it fell through the cracks.

tacaswell
tacaswell previously approved these changes May 9, 2024
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asmeurer commented May 9, 2024

Sorry that I wasn't clear. I reproduced the Sphinx issue outside of pytest, using

cd lib/matplotlib/tests/tinypages
python -m sphinx -W -b html -d doctrees . _build/html/ -D plot_srcset=2x

The first output I showed is from pytest (which is running that command). The second is the log file from running the command directly, which shows the full traceback.

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asmeurer commented May 9, 2024

Ah, so looking closer at https://matplotlib.org/devdocs/devel/development_setup.html#create-a-dedicated-environment, I see there is a secret "conda" button you have to click. I really don't like that Sphinx extension that hides content behind tabs...

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oh, I bet our tiny pages config needs the backend set to Agg...

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asmeurer commented May 9, 2024

The extension supposedly does that

But perhaps my private matplotlib config is messing with things.

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asmeurer commented May 9, 2024

I have some work-in-progress code to do the duplicate filename checks. I'm trying to figure out why this out_of_date function is needed

def out_of_date(original, derived, includes=None):
"""
Return whether *derived* is out-of-date relative to *original* or any of
the RST files included in it using the RST include directive (*includes*).
*derived* and *original* are full paths, and *includes* is optionally a
list of full paths which may have been included in the *original*.
"""
Shouldn't Sphinx already handle that logic itself? It apparently is needed based on this issue #17860, but I'm not understanding why.

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asmeurer commented May 9, 2024

By the way, I saw you approved this. If you want to merge this as-is, that's fine. I can add the duplicate filename check in a separate PR. I'm still not completely sure yet if I can actually get it working.

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So it occurs to me that this might actually do unexpected things if a global output_base_name is set when there are partial rebuilds. I think I might just remove the ability to have a global option, as well as the counter. We can at least check that no names are the same document.

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This is also going to do funny looking things if you mix plots with and without set base names as the counter is always increased so I think you will get names like [doc-1.png, my_name.png, doc-3.png].

One option would be to the '{counter}' logic and move the counter incrementing into the other branch.

Another option would be to instead of thinking of this as setting the base name, change the user facing knob to be a postfix so either we append a counter OR we stick on what ever the user gave us. I think that will fix the myst problem and prevents inter-document name collisions.

@tacaswell tacaswell dismissed their stale review May 13, 2024 18:42

Too enthusiastic, still some open questions.

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My plan is to simplify this considerably:

  • Remove the global base-name flag, and also the {counter} thing. Just have :output-base-name: and that's it. Is it possible for a single plot directive to produce multiple files? If so, I'll still need to automatically append a counter in those cases. I think the issue you pointed out is accurate so I'll need to update the counter to work per-base name. If that's not possible, we can just ignore the counter completely when base-name is set.

  • Add a basic check for duplicate names in the same file. Checking for duplicate names across files is doable but annoying because we have to store information in the Sphinx environment so that it works across rebuilds.

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Has anyone tested this for performance? This has a loop through all the basenames - is that a trivial call for every image in a gallery? I guess we don't have that many plot directives, so maybe it is OK.

If you're talking about _FilenameCollector, all that's doing is creating a mapping of plots to filenames, so that Sphinx can persist it between runs.

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asmeurer commented Mar 5, 2025

Is this CI test failure related to my changes?

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timhoffm commented Mar 6, 2025

No it's a flaky test.

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Something missing from the tests I think is what happens when image-basename is set and the plot directive creates multiple figures? I don't believe this is currently handled at least based on the diff of _plot_counter.

def check_output_base_name(env, output_base):
docname = env.docname

if '.' in output_base or '/' in output_base:
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Since this is passed through Path, etc., you should also check for \\.

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QuLogic commented Jun 5, 2025

I can't comment on the line directly since it's not part of the diff, but the output_base variable that was changed is also used for show-source-link, which doesn't look documented or tested (and thus I'm not sure if that was intentional either.)

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asmeurer commented Jun 6, 2025

I added a test for multiple figures. I can confirm that it does work by testing manually, but for some reason adding leads to a much earlier test failing.


tmp_path = PosixPath('/private/var/folders/wc/dppcpmxs1tlb36nqcw853wkm0000gn/T/pytest-of-aaronmeurer/pytest-6/test_tinypages0')

    def test_tinypages(tmp_path):
        shutil.copytree(tinypages, tmp_path, dirs_exist_ok=True)
        html_dir = tmp_path / '_build' / 'html'
        img_dir = html_dir / '_images'
        doctree_dir = tmp_path / 'doctrees'

        # Build the pages with warnings turned into errors
        build_sphinx_html(tmp_path, doctree_dir, html_dir)

        def plot_file(num):
            return img_dir / f'some_plots-{num}.png'

        def plot_directive_file(num):
            # This is always next to the doctree dir.
            return doctree_dir.parent / 'plot_directive' / f'some_plots-{num}.png'

        range_10, range_6, range_4 = (plot_file(i) for i in range(1, 4))
        # Plot 5 is range(6) plot
        assert filecmp.cmp(range_6, plot_file(5))
        # Plot 7 is range(4) plot
        assert filecmp.cmp(range_4, plot_file(7))
        # Plot 11 is range(10) plot
        assert filecmp.cmp(range_10, plot_file(11))
        # Plot 12 uses the old range(10) figure and the new range(6) figure
        assert filecmp.cmp(range_10, plot_file('12_00'))
        assert filecmp.cmp(range_6, plot_file('12_01'))
        # Plot 13 shows close-figs in action
        assert filecmp.cmp(range_4, plot_file(13))
        # Plot 14 has included source
        html_contents = (html_dir / 'some_plots.html').read_text(encoding='utf-8')

        assert '# Only a comment' in html_contents
        # check plot defined in external file.
>       assert filecmp.cmp(range_4, img_dir / 'range4.png')
E       AssertionError: assert False
E        +  where False = <function cmp at 0x12710b560>(PosixPath('/private/var/folders/wc/dppcpmxs1tlb36nqcw853wkm0000gn/T/pytest-of-aaronmeurer/pytest-6/test_tinypages0/_build/html/_images/some_plots-3.png'), (PosixPath('/private/var/folders/wc/dppcpmxs1tlb36nqcw853wkm0000gn/T/pytest-of-aaronmeurer/pytest-6/test_tinypages0/_build/html/_images') / 'range4.png'))
E        +    where <function cmp at 0x12710b560> = filecmp.cmp

lib/matplotlib/tests/test_sphinxext.py:75: AssertionError

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asmeurer commented Jun 6, 2025

Good catch on the source link. It is working, but it looks like it isn't properly adding the .py extension when there is a custom name. I'm working on a fix.

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asmeurer commented Jun 6, 2025

Oh I think that was just because I was testing tinypages locally and it was messing with the tests.

…docs in tinypages

The tests now don't copy any of the build files, meaning the tests should pass
even if tinypages has stale build state from a manual build.
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asmeurer commented Jun 6, 2025

OK, this is ready for review again.

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Since this also affects the naming of the source file, should we go back to output-basename, or are you comfortable with it staying image-basename, @timhoffm?

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timhoffm commented Jun 7, 2025

Since this also affects the naming of the source file, should we go back to output-basename, or are you comfortable with it staying image-basename, @timhoffm?

I don't care too much between output and image. One can argue both ways: The source and the image use this, or we focus on the eventually desired output (the image) and the source just follows along with it.

We should consider whether basename is appropriate. While os.path.basename includes the extension, here it's not included. stem would be the technically correct term. However I feel output-stem or image-stem is not instructive; we'd need to go with the lengthy output-filename-stem or image-filename-stem. Maybe *-prefix would be another alternative.

Either way, I believe the logic is too complex to caputure everything in a single name. Until now, everything was magically determined behind the scenes (i.e. users should not have to bother with the exact name). If we now make the name configurable, we should explain what exactly this is in the associated docs

(1) this must not have any path components
(2) it may be the full filename stem, or only a prefix since AFAICS there are multiple ways that additional components could be appended.

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asmeurer commented Jun 7, 2025

My original version did have something more configurable (the user could specify the format string), but I decided that was way too complex for what was needed here. I think the main thing here is that the user has some way to make the name a little more human readable. If it also adds some numbering or file extensions to that it isn't a problem, especially given that no one else has even raised this as a problem before. And obviously for my original problem the name itself doesn't even matter; it just needs to be unique.

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timhoffm commented Jun 7, 2025

Then possibly output-prefix or image-prefix are good names as they only claim to define a part of the filename.

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asmeurer commented Jun 8, 2025

FWIW, none of the suggested names really make a ton of sense if you just see them in a plot directive without the context of the sphinx extension internals, or even just the context of the matplotlib sphinx extension documentation. Perhaps the name should just be something like output-name or filename-prefix that is a little more self-documenting.

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timhoffm commented Jun 8, 2025

filename-prefix sounds good to me.

@asmeurer asmeurer changed the title Add an image-basename option to the Sphinx plot directive Add an filename-prefix option to the Sphinx plot directive Jun 8, 2025
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asmeurer commented Jun 8, 2025

OK, I've updated it to use filename-prefix.

@QuLogic QuLogic changed the title Add an filename-prefix option to the Sphinx plot directive Add a filename-prefix option to the Sphinx plot directive Jun 11, 2025
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