How do I use a substitution directive with an abbreviation in Sphinx (reST)?

Question

I'm trying to automate abbreviations in my Sphinx documentation using substitutions and abbreviations in conjunction like below:

.. |CFD| :abbr:`CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics)`

I get the error:

Substitution definition "CFD" empty or invalid.

Answer 1

You omitted replace:: in your reStructuredText markup. This should work.

.. |CFD| replace:: :abbr:`CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics)`