How to refer child class attributes in the parent class docstring?

Question

I'm using :inherited-members: to show parent methods.

In the documentation generated for the child, is it possible to refer to the child class?

class Parent:
   """This is a {Child class name} class

   This is in the {Child group attribute} group
   """
   group = ''
   ...

class Child(Parent):
   group = 'TheChild'
   ...

In the generated documentation for the child, I would like to see:

> class Child(Parent)
>   Bases: Parent
>   This is a Child class.
>   It is in the TheChild group

Is this possible with Sphinx?

Answer 1

You can use the Sphinx Cross-referencing syntax inside the docstrings, with the appropriate roles from the Python domain. After that the autodoc directives in your .rst take care of the rest.

Example parent_child.py

class Parent:
    """
    This is a :py:class:`Child` class.

    This is in the :py:data:`Child.group` attribute.
    """
    group = 'TheParent'


class Child(Parent):
    group = 'TheChild'

parent_child.rst

Parent\_Child
=============

.. autoclass:: parent_child.Parent
    :members:
    :undoc-members:
    :show-inheritance:

.. autoclass:: parent_child.Child
    :members:
    :undoc-members:
    :show-inheritance:

And the result: