error: unrecognized arguments: -docbuild

[Trevor Karn]

Hi all,

I build the most recent version of Sage 10.10.beta9 using conda. I didn't explicitly turn off the doc build, so I expected it to build. However, when I call manual(), I am unable to bring up the documentation. The error message said to build it with `sage -docbuild reference html` and try again. When I tried that, I got an error: unrecognized arguments -docbuild. (Also with --docbuild.) 

So I have two questions - (1) what is the right thing to do here? and (2) more importantly, is the error message on line 1632 of SAGE_ROOT/src/sage/misc/sagedoc.py misleading? If so, how should it be changed?

Thanks!

(sage-dev) ~ $ sage
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ SageMath version 10.10.beta9, Release Date: 2026-08-23             │
│ Using Python 3.12.13. Type "help()" for help.                      │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Warning: this is a prerelease version, and it may be unstable.     ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
sage: manual()
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
OSError                                   Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[1], line 1
----> 1 manual()

File sage/misc/lazy_import.pyx:420, in sage.misc.lazy_import.LazyImport.__call__()
--> 420 'Could not get source, probably due dynamically evaluated source code.'

File ~/sage/sage/src/sage/misc/sagedoc.py:1659, in _sage_doc.reference(self)
   1650 def reference(self):
   1651     """
   1652     The Sage reference manual.
   1653
   (...)   1657         sage: manual()  # indirect doctest, not tested
   1658     """
-> 1659     self._open("reference")

File ~/sage/sage/src/sage/misc/sagedoc.py:1632, in _sage_doc._open(self, name, testing)
   1630         path = os.path.join(self._base_path, name, "index.html")
   1631         if not os.path.exists(path):
-> 1632             raise OSError("""The document '{0}' does not exist.  Please build it
   1633 with 'sage -docbuild {0} html' and try again.""".format(name))
   1635         if testing:
   1636             return (url, path)

OSError: The document 'reference' does not exist.  Please build it
with 'sage -docbuild reference html' and try again.
sage:                                                                          
(sage-dev) ~ $ sage -docbuild reference html
usage: sage [-h] [-v] [-q] [--simple-prompt] [-V] [-n [{jupyter,jupyterlab}]]
            [-c [COMMAND]]
            [file ...]
sage: error: unrecognized arguments: -docbuild

[Michael Orlitzky]

On 2026-08-27 12:36:24, 'Trevor Karn' via sage-devel wrote:
>
> So I have two questions - (1) what is the right thing to do here? and (2)
> more importantly, is the error message on line 1632 of
> SAGE_ROOT/src/sage/misc/sagedoc.py misleading? If so, how should it be
> changed?

There is a PR to update the relevant documentation,

https://github.com/sagemath/sage/pull/42646

though it looks like the error in sagedoc.py has been missed.

[Dima Pasechnik]

meson compile -C <build-dir> doc-html

should do it, for <build-dir> being the directory where Sage got installed.

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[Trevor Karn]

Thanks, Dima. This is still not working for me. I ran the following:

rm -rf <build-dir>
meson setup <build-dir> --prefix="$CONDA_PREFIX"

meson compile -C <build-dir>
meson install -C <build-dir>

following output of gpt-4.1. I am able to open html files manually, but when I run "manual()" I get the same error as before. Do you have any further advice? I have attached the logs in case that is useful.

On Thu, Aug 27, 2026 at 5:21 PM Dima Pasechnik <dim...@gmail.com> wrote:

meson compile -C <build-dir> doc-html should do it, for <build-dir> being the directory where Sage got installed. On Thu, Aug 27, 2026 at 2: 36 PM 'Trevor Karn' via sage-devel <sage-devel@ googlegroups. com> wrote: > > Hi

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[Dima Pasechnik]

it might be that "manual()" is just not working anymore, as happens with untested features.

The need for it is limited - just open the index file of the documentation in the browser...

[Trevor Karn]

Thanks, Dima. With my user hat on I'm happy to just open the index file of the documentation in the browser.

With my developer hat on, I'm thinking we should either fix `manual()` or remove it. Unless I am the only one with this problem. Has anyone else had this problem on the latest beta version?

On Mon, Aug 31, 2026 at 9:14 PM Dima Pasechnik <dim...@gmail.com> wrote:

it might be that "manual()" is just not working anymore, as happens with untested features. The need for it is limited - just open the index file of the documentation in the browser. . . On August 31, 2026 6: 30: 45 PM CDT, 'Trevor Karn' via sage-devel

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[Antonio Rojas]

manual() works just fine here in 10.10 beta 9. I installed the docs manually though, it may be `meson install` that is broken.

[Kwankyu Lee]

See https://github.com/sagemath/sage/pull/40807

[Marc Culler]

The manual() funciton also works fine in the pre-release of the Sage_macOS binary package for Sage 10.10 on arm64.

- Marc

[Trevor Karn]

Ok - sounds like it is a me problem then. Thanks all!

On Wed, Sep 2, 2026 at 1:29 PM Marc Culler <marc....@gmail.com> wrote:

The manual() funciton also works fine in the pre-release of the Sage_macOS binary package for Sage 10. 10 on arm64. - Marc On Tuesday, September 1, 2026 at 9: 07: 59 AM UTC-5 Antonio Rojas wrote: manual() works just fine here in 10. 10 beta 9. I

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