[Docutils-develop] [docutils:feature-requests] #91 reST: include directive should support root-relative paths

[Günter M. <mi...@us...>]

For "elsewhere", I propose the [configuration settings](https://docutils.sourceforge.io/docs/user/config.html).

Before attempting a patch, we should check with the various frameworks
(Sphinx, Nicola, Pelican, ...) how useful they consider this to be
and whether we should

* provide an "include-root" for the include path, or
* provide a "standard-include-path", i.e. a list of directories to search for
   ``<angle-backeted-files>`` [standard "include" data files](https://docutils.sourceforge.io/docs/ref/rst/directives.html#including-an-external-document-fragment).
  





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** [feature-requests:#91] reST: include directive should support root-relative paths**

**Status:** open
**Group:** None
**Created:** Tue May 03, 2022 04:03 PM UTC by Michal Urbanski
**Last Updated:** Fri May 06, 2022 10:27 PM UTC
**Owner:** nobody


I'm building a static website using restructuredtext and I'm really annoyed by the lack of support for root-relative paths.

I have already implemented multiple directive plugins for my website build process, some of which use external files in a different format. They use the convention that if a path begins with /, they are relative to the root directory of the project.

IMO the requirement for relative paths is very limiting - I could have a directory with files intended for inclusion but:

- I would need to use `../../` which is very ugly
- relative paths are different depending on the current file path - this is very fragile and limits 

An additional argument is that C and C++ have been using #include for like 40 years and relative paths (while sometimes useful) are only for specific cases. The leading convention is to use root-relative paths.

I could implement another plugin for it but ... copy-pasting docutils own code only to change few lines is definitely smelly.


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