Updating sphinx from 1.8.0 to 1.8.1 results in warning

[topic2k]

Previously posted in forum: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sphinx-users/C1JJH62UMaM/AigXvOC-CQAJ

Describe the bug
After the updating sphinx from 1.8.0 to 1.8.1 building of the docs print these warnings:

WARNING: error while formatting arguments for eg.TriggerEvent: 'function' object has no attribute '__bases__'
WARNING: error while formatting arguments for eg.PrintError: 'function' object has no attribute '__bases__'

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior (Windows only):

$ git clone https://github.com/EventGhost/EventGhost
$ cd EventGhost\_build\data
$ sphinx-build -b html docs tmp

Expected behavior
A sphinx build run without errors.

Your project
https://github.com/EventGhost/EventGhost
https://github.com/EventGhost/EventGhost/tree/master/_build/data/docs

Environment info

• OS: Windows
• Python version: 2.7.15
• Sphinx version: 1.8.1
• Sphinx extensions: sphinx.ext.autodoc

Additional context

Komiya Takeshi wrote
I think that might be related with this change.
sphinx-doc:16533cf...sphinx-doc:65a560f#diff-48ca4d6544b092f35d729127500bff5fR1058

[tk0miya]

As I commented in the group, what I'd like to know is how eg.TriggerEvent and eg.PrintError are implemented. It is strongly related with this problem. In your post, replacing isfunction() by isroutine() is needed for your code. It means these code are not functions.

Could you let me know how to implement them? Unfortunately, I don't have windows PC. so it would be very nice if you let me know the location of code.

[topic2k]

eg.TriggerEvent is implemented in eg.Classes.EventThread.py.
eg.PrintError is implemented in eg.Classes.Log.py

[tk0miya]

It seems both are not functions. They're methods. inspect.isfunction() returns False value for methods.

$ python
Python 3.7.1 (default, Oct 23 2018, 19:06:59)
[Clang 8.0.0 (clang-800.0.42.1)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> class Foo:
...     def meth(self): pass
...
>>> import inspect
>>> inspect.isfunction(Foo().meth)
False

I feel very strange to use function directive for methods...

[topic2k]

With that information i stepped through the building and the source files. When i replace .. autofunction:: eg.TriggerEvent in eg/index.rst with .. automethod:: eg.EventThread.TriggerEvent the build generates no warning (for TriggerEvent), but in the output we then have EventThread.TriggerEvent instead of eg.TriggerEvent.
Can it be because we assign the method to the dynamic module?

If this is special case with our source code, is there way i can automatically replace EventThread.TriggerEvent with eg.TriggerEvent in the generated file?

[topic2k]

I've made a small runable app that also runs on Linux. Run python2 build_docs.py to see the warning. (python3 doesn't raise the warning)

EventGhost.zip

[tk0miya]

I just posted PR #6083. I suppose this fixes the warning. Could you try it please?

[topic2k]

The fix results in a correct build. Thank you.

[tk0miya]

Thank you for confirmation :-)