1.23. Index

.. index::

For more details, see index directive.

Some roles and directives do already create indices automatically.

However, there is also an explicit directive available, to make the index more comprehensive and enable index entries in documents where information is not mainly contained in information units.

The directive is .. index:: and contains one or more index entries Each entry consists of a type and a value, separated by a colon. For example:

.. index::
   single: execution; context
   triple: module; search; path

:index:

For more details, see index role.

While the index directive is a block-level markup and links to the beginning of the next paragraph, there is also a corresponding role that sets the link target directly where it is used.

The content of the role can be a simple phrase, which is then kept in the text and used as an index entry. It can also be a combination of text and index entry, styled like with explicit targets of cross-references. In that case, the “target” part can be a full entry as described for the directive above. For example:

This is a normal reST :index:`paragraph` that contains several
:index:`index entries <pair: index; entry>`.

Note

The :index: role must contain text. This text will be printed and referenced by the index.