Configuration

The conf.py file contains the documentation configuration for your project. This file needs to be equipped in order to configure the traceability plugin.

First the plugin needs to be enabled in the extensions variable:

extensions = [
    'mlx.traceability',
    ...
]

Second the path to the static javascript assets needs to be added to the sphinx html_static_path variable.

import os
import mlx.traceability

html_static_path = [os.path.join(os.path.dirname(mlx.traceability.__file__), 'assets')]

Valid attributes

Python variable traceability_attributes can be defined in order to override the default configuration of the traceability plugin. It is a dictionary of attribute pairs: the key is the name of the attribute (can only be lowercase), while the value holds the regular expression to which the attribute-value should comply.

Example of attributes and their regular expression:

traceability_attributes = {
    'value': '^.*$',
    'asil': '^(QM|[ABCD])$',
    'non_functional': '^.{0}$',  # empty string
}

Stringification of attributes

Python variable traceability_attribute_to_string can be defined in order to override the default configuration of the traceability plugin. It is a dictionary of attribute stringifications: the key is the name of the attribute, while the value holds the string representation (as to be rendered in html) of the attribute name.

Example of attribute stringification:

traceability_relationship_to_string = {
    'value': 'Value',
    'asil': 'ASIL',
}

Valid relationships

Python variable traceability_relationships can be defined in order to override the default configuration of the traceability plugin. It is a dictionary of relationship pairs: the key is the name of the forward relationship, while the value holds the name of the corresponding reverse relationship. Both can only be lowercase.

Relationships with prefix ext_ are treated in a different way: they are handled as external relationships and don’t need a reverse relationship.

Example of internal and external relationship pairs:

traceability_relationships = {
    'validates': 'validated_by',
    'ext_polarion_reference': '',
}

Stringification of relationships

Python variable traceability_relationship_to_string can be defined in order to override the default configuration of the traceability plugin. It is a dictionary of relationship stringifications: the key is the name of the (forward or reverse) relationship, while the value holds the string representation (as to be rendered in html) of the relationship.

Example of internal and external relationship stringification:

traceability_relationship_to_string = {
    'validates': 'Validates',
    'validated_by': 'Validated by',
    'ext_polarion_reference': 'Polarion reference',
}

External relationship to URL translation

External relationships need to be translated to URL’s while rendering. For each defined external relationship, an entry in the dictionary named traceability_external_relationship_to_url is needed. The URL generation is templated using the fieldN keyword, where N is a number incrementing from 1 onwards for each value in the URL that needs to be replaced.

Example configuration of URL translation of external relationship using 2 fields:

traceability_external_relationship_to_url = {
    'ext_polarion_reference': 'https://melexis.polarion.com/polarion/#/project/field1/workitem?id=field2',
}

Rendering of relationships per documentation object

When rendering the documentation objects, the user has the option to include/exclude the rendering of the relationships to other documentation objects. This can be done through the Python variable traceability_render_relationship_per_item which is boolean: a value of True will enable rendering of relationships per documentation object, while a value of False will disable this rendering.

Example configuration of enable rendering relationships per item:

traceability_render_relationship_per_item = True

Rendering of attributes per documentation object

The rendering of attributes of documentation objects can be controlled through the boolean variable traceability_render_attributes_per_item: rendering of attributes is enabled by setting it to True (the default) while a value of False will prevent the attribute list from being rendered.

Example configuration of disabling per item attribute rendering:

traceability_render_attributes_per_item = False

Ability to collapse the list of relationships and attributes per documentation object

A button is added to each documentation object that has rendered relationships and/or attributes to be able to show and hide these traceability links. The boolean configuration variable traceability_collapse_links allows selecting between hiding and showing the list of links for all items on page load: setting its value to True results in the list of links being hidden (collapsed) on page load, while the default value of False results in the list being shown (uncollapsed). When an item is selected, its list will always be shown.

Example configuration of hiding the traceability links on page load:

traceability_collapse_links = True

No captions

By default, the output will contain hyperlinks to all related items. By default, the caption for the target item is displayed for each of the related items. The captions can be omitted at configuration level (see this section) and at directive level (see e.g. Traceability matrix of documentation items).

No captions for item

Example configuration of disabling the rendering of captions on item:

traceability_item_no_captions = True

No captions for item-list

Example configuration of disabling the rendering of captions on item-list:

traceability_list_no_captions = True

No captions for item-matrix

Example configuration of disabling the rendering of captions on item-matrix:

traceability_matrix_no_captions = True

No captions for item-attributes-matrix

Example configuration of disabling the rendering of captions on item-attributes-matrix:

traceability_attributes_matrix_no_captions = True

No captions for item-tree

Example configuration of disabling the rendering of captions on item-tree:

traceability_tree_no_captions = True

Export

The plugin allows exporting the documentation items.

Export to JSON

As a preliminary test feature, the plugin allows to export the documentation items to a JSON database. The feature can be enabled by setting the configuration to your JSON-file to export to. Note, the JSON-file is overwritten (not appended) on every build of the documentation.

traceability_json_export_path = '/path/to/your/database.json'

As a preliminary feature, the database only contains per documentation item:

the id
the caption
the document name and line number
the attributes
the relations to other items
the MD5 hash of the content, which allows to check for changes in content when diffing 2 versions of the documentation

The actual content (RST content with images, formulas, etc) of the item is currently not stored.

Note

Requires sphinx >= 1.6.0

Callback per item (advanced)

Callback to modify item

The plugin allows parsing and modifying documentation objects behind the scenes using a callback. The callback has this prototype:

def traceability_callback_per_item(name, collection):
    """Callback function called when an item-directive is being processed.

    Note: attributes, relationships and content (body) of the item can be modified. Sphinx processes each directive
    in turn, so attributes and relationships added or modified by other directives may not have been processed yet.

    Args:
        name (str): Name (id) of the item currently being parsed
        collection (TraceableCollection): Collection of all items that have been parsed so far
    """
    pass

Note

The callback is executed while parsing the documentation item from your RST file. Note that not all items are available at the time this callback executes, the collection parameter is a growing collection of documentation objects.

Callback to inspect item

To overcome the limitation of traceability_callback_per_item (see note above), a secondary callback function can be defined. This function will be called when rendering each item-directive. At that moment, all other directive types, e.g. attribute-link and item-link, will have been processed. You can use this callback function to detect and warn about any gaps in your documentation but you cannot use it to make any modifications. The callback has this prototype:

def traceability_inspect_item(name, collection):
    """Callback function called when an item-directive is being rendered.

    Warning: the item cannot not be modified, only inspected.

    Note: At this stage of the documentation build, all directives, e.g. attribute-link and item-link,
    have been processed and any gaps in your documentation can be exposed by reporting a warning.

    Args:
        name (str): Name (id) of the item currently being parsed
        collection (TraceableCollection): Collection of all items that have been parsed so far
    """
    pass

Warning

The collection should not be modified, only inspected. Modifying the collection in this step can corrupt it without triggering any warnings.

Example of requiring certain attributes on an item

The callback function can modify traceable items, e.g. add attributes. In this example it reports a warning when the item doesn’t have either the functional or non-functional attribute defined at the time its ``item``-directive is being processed:

from mlx.traceability import report_warning

def traceability_callback_per_item(name, collection):
    item = collection.get_item(name)
    if not (('functional' in item.attributes) ^ ('non_functional' in item.attributes)):
        report_warning("Requirement item {!r} must have either the 'functional' or 'non_functional' attribute; "
                       "adding 'functional'".format(name), docname=item.docname, lineno=item.lineno)
        item.add_attribute('functional', '')

Custom colors for linked items

The plugin allows customization of the colors of traceable items in order to easily recognize the type of item which is linked to. A dictionary in the configuration file defines the regexp, which is used to match item IDs, as key and a tuple of 1-3 color defining strings as value. The first color is used for the default hyperlink state, the second color is used for the hover and active states, and the third color is used to override the default color of the visited state. Leaving a color empty results in the use of the default html style. The top regexp has the highest priority.

traceability_hyperlink_colors = {
    r'RQT|r[\d]+': ('#7F00FF', '#b369ff'),
    r'[IU]TEST_REP': ('rgba(255, 0, 0, 1)', 'rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.7)', 'rgb(200, 0, 0)'),
    r'[IU]TEST': ('goldenrod', 'hsl(43, 62%, 58%)', 'darkgoldenrod'),
    r'SYS_': ('', 'springgreen', ''),
    r'SRS_': ('', 'orange', ''),
}

Mapping of undefined references

Undefined references can be mapped to a special item, e.g. to explain to the reader why the reference is undefined. In the example below the special item has ID DOC-NOTIFICATION.

traceability_notifications = {
    'undefined-reference': 'DOC-NOTIFICATION',
}

Default config

The plugin itself holds a default config that can be used for any traceability documenting project:

traceability_callback_per_item = None
traceability_attributes = {
    'value': '^.*$',
    'asil': '^(QM|[ABCD])$',
    'aspice': '^[123]$',
    'status': '^.*$',
    'result': '(?i)^(pass|fail|error)$'
    'attendees': '^([A-Z]{3}[, ]*)+$',
    'assignee': '^.*$',
    'effort': r'^([\d\.]+(mo|[wdhm]) ?)+$',
}
traceability_attribute_to_string = {
    'value': 'Value',
    'asil': 'ASIL',
    'aspice': 'ASPICE',
    'status': 'Status',
    'result': 'Result',
    'attendees': 'Attendees',
    'assignee': 'Assignee',
    'effort': 'Effort estimation',
}
traceability_attributes_sort = {
    'effort': natsort.natsorted,
}
traceability_relationships = {
    'fulfills': 'fulfilled_by',
    'depends_on': 'impacts_on',
    'implements': 'implemented_by',
    'realizes': 'realized_by',
    'validates': 'validated_by',
    'trace': 'backtrace',
    'ext_toolname': '',
}
traceability_relationship_to_string = {
    'fulfills': 'Fulfills',
    'fulfilled_by': 'Fulfilled by',
    'depends_on': 'Depends on',
    'impacts_on': 'Impacts on',
    'implements': 'Implements',
    'implemented_by': 'Implemented by',
    'realizes': 'Realizes',
    'realized_by': 'Realized by',
    'validates': 'Validates',
    'validated_by': 'Validated by',
    'trace': 'Traces',
    'backtrace': 'Backtraces',
    'ext_toolname': 'Reference to toolname',
}
traceability_external_relationship_to_url = {
    'ext_toolname': 'http://toolname.company.com/field1/workitem?field2',
}
traceability_render_relationship_per_item = False

This default configuration, which is built into the plugin, can be overridden through the conf.py of your project.

For Melexis.SWCC silicon projects, the SWCC process holds a default configuration in the config/traceability_config.py file. For each of the above configuration variables, the default configuration file holds a variable with swcc_ prefix. Taking the default configuration is as easy as assiging the above configuration value with the swcc_ variable. Overriding a configuration is as easy as assigning your own values to a configuration value.

Example of accepting default configuration for relationships, while disabling (override) rendering of relationships per documentation object:

sys.path.insert(0, os.path.abspath('<path_to_process_submodule>/config'))

from traceability_config import swcc_traceability_attributes
from traceability_config import swcc_traceability_relationships
from traceability_config import swcc_traceability_relationship_to_string

traceability_attributes = swcc_traceability_attributes
traceability_relationships = swcc_traceability_relationships
traceability_relationship_to_string = swcc_traceability_relationship_to_string
traceability_render_relationship_per_item = False