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RFE: Run linkchecker on documentation on the CI #84947
Description
| BPO | 40770 |
|---|---|
| Nosy | @terryjreedy, @vstinner, @ned-deily, @JulienPalard, @hroncok, @amaajemyfren, @petdance |
Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.
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GitHub fields:
assignee = None
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2020-05-25.16:09:02.564>
labels = ['3.10', 'docs']
title = 'RFE: Run linkchecker on documentation on the CI'
updated_at = <Date 2020-05-30.02:14:20.599>
user = 'https://github.com/hroncok'bugs.python.org fields:
activity = <Date 2020-05-30.02:14:20.599>
actor = 'terry.reedy'
assignee = 'docs@python'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Documentation']
creation = <Date 2020-05-25.16:09:02.564>
creator = 'hroncok'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 40770
keywords = []
message_count = 7.0
messages = ['369892', '369893', '370196', '370202', '370226', '370270', '370353']
nosy_count = 8.0
nosy_names = ['terry.reedy', 'vstinner', 'ned.deily', 'docs@python', 'mdk', 'hroncok', 'amaajemyfren', 'petdance']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = None
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue40770'
versions = ['Python 3.10']
Activity
hroncok commentedon May 25, 2020
In Fedora, we run the following check when we build Python documentation:
From time to time, it discovers broken links:
#15700
#20383
#20388
It would be really nice if this check run as part of the CI that builds the documentation.
hroncok commentedon May 25, 2020
Side note: linkchecker can be installed via pip, but the released version is not Python 3 compatible. In Fedora, we package it from git.
hroncok commentedon May 28, 2020
Note: I would gladly contribute this check, but I have no idea where should I do that.
amaajemyfren commentedon May 28, 2020
On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 3:13 PM Miro Hrončok <report@bugs.python.org> wrote:
I don't know either. I suspect it will have to be with one of the
CI/CD providers that cpython uses.
I _think_ it uses three:
a. Travis cpython/.travis.yml
b. Github Actions .github/workflows/doc.yml
c. Azures Pipelines .azure-pipelines/docs-steps.yml
Beyond that no idea. I fear I am also blind here. Still google is my friend.
petdance commentedon May 28, 2020
Some high-level questions to consider:
Is it run only when a build of the docs is started? Or should it be done regularly (daily/weekly?) to keep an eye on links so that it's not a surprise when build time comes along?
Does a broken link stop the build, or is it just advisory?
Who sees the results? Are they emailed to someone? A mailing list? Posted somewhere publicly?
Is someone assigned responsibility for acting on the failures?
What counts as a failure? Is a 301 redirect OK? It seems that a 301 might be OK to pass, but someone should know about it to update to the new URL.
I am not familiar with the current documentation build process, so forgive me if these are already answered somehow. I'm not looking for answers myself, but providing suggestions.
ned-deily commentedon May 28, 2020
I think our CI checks already take too long to run and use possibly more than our fair share of global open source resources (provided by GitHub, Travis, MS Azure) especially considering how infrequently you would expect to find a problem and the low severity of missing one immediately. I think a more appropriate choice would be to set up a buildbot to do such a check, perhaps weekly is often enough, not more than daily.
Julien, what do you think?
terryjreedy commentedon May 30, 2020
Something rebuilds the online docs once a day. That same something might be appropriate for running a link checker (including external links) once a week, say.
StanFromIreland commentedon Nov 1, 2025
More recent discussion took place in #103484, so I will close this as a duplicate. In short, this is difficult for two reasons, it takes 30-50 minutes, and there are many false positives.