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Rst Parser Laravel Package
doctrine/rst-parser
PHP library for parsing reStructuredText documents, used to generate documentation for the Doctrine project website. It converts RST markup into a structured document tree.
At a glance
Frequently asked questions about Rst Parser
- How do I install doctrine/rst-parser in a Laravel application?
- Install it with composer require doctrine/rst-parser; it is a pure-PHP library with no Laravel service provider or framework coupling. Register a small adapter class such as RstDocumentParser in your container and call it from a controller, console command or queued job. Keeping the dependency behind that adapter lets you pin, swap or fork the parser without touching application code.
- Does doctrine/rst-parser support Laravel 10, 11 and 12?
- There is no Laravel version constraint because the package has no framework coupling; it only requires PHP 8.x and Composer. That means it runs fine on Laravel 10, 11 or 12 as long as your PHP floor satisfies the pinned release. Check the package's composer.json against your app's PHP version during upgrade cycles, since upstream releases are infrequent.
- How do I convert reStructuredText to HTML with doctrine/rst-parser?
- The library returns a structured document tree, not finished HTML, so you must write your own node visitor or serializer to emit markup. Wrap the parse and render steps in a service, then sanitize the output before storing or displaying it. Budget real effort for that visitor and for graceful fallbacks on nodes the parser does not fully support.
- Can doctrine/rst-parser parse Sphinx directives and roles?
- Coverage is partial. RST is a large surface, and Sphinx-specific roles, directives, includes and substitutions are not all implemented. Spike against your largest and most complex real documents, measure how many Sphinx constructs they use, and add shims or acceptable degradation where output falls short.
- Is doctrine/rst-parser safe for rendering untrusted RST content?
- Not without sanitization. RST permits raw HTML passthrough, which is a stored-XSS vector if the source document is user-supplied or comes from a third party. Always run rendered output through an HTML sanitizer before persisting it or printing it in a Blade view.
- Is doctrine/rst-parser actively maintained and production ready?
- It is a small, effectively single-maintainer project (around 60 GitHub stars and no dependents) whose primary consumer is the Doctrine documentation website. It is MIT licensed and safe for commercial redistribution, but bugs you hit are likely bugs you fix. Pin a version, monitor upstream, and decide in advance whether you would fork or vendor it if maintenance goes quiet.
- What are the alternatives to doctrine/rst-parser for RST in PHP?
- PHP's Markdown tooling, such as league/commonmark or Parsedown, is far better supported in the Laravel ecosystem, so only choose an RST parser if reStructuredText is a genuine requirement. If your RST corpus is inherited legacy content, a one-time conversion to Markdown is often the cheaper long-term option. If you need to keep RST as the source of truth, doctrine/rst-parser is the cleanest pure-PHP starting point.
- How do I test RST parsing in a Laravel application?
- Because the parser is a plain library, test it by feeding fixture RST strings into your adapter and asserting on the resulting document tree or rendered HTML. Keep fixtures for the trickiest constructs your corpus uses, especially directives you expect to degrade. A standard PHPUnit test case is enough; no Laravel-specific test helpers are required for the parser itself.
- How do I batch convert a large RST documentation corpus in Laravel?
- Use a console command or queued job that walks the RST corpus, parses each file, serializes it to HTML or a normalized JSON block format, and persists the result. Downstream Blade views, APIs and search indexes then read the stored artifact instead of parsing RST at request time. Cache rendered output on a filesystem or blob disk to avoid repeated work across large doc sets.
- Can doctrine/rst-parser extract titles and sections without rendering HTML?
- Yes. The parser produces an AST, so you can walk it and pull out titles, section headings and code blocks without producing any HTML at all. That is a lower-risk integration and works well for search indexing or navigation generation. A full HTML renderer can be added later if you eventually need one.
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