Wikipedia excerpt:

reStructuredText (RST, ReST, or reST) is a file format for textual data used primarily in the Python programming language community for technical documentation.

Key links

aka reST.

A documentation markup format for .rst files.

  • reStructuredText homepage on DocUtils site

    Markup Syntax and Parser Component of Docutils

    “reStructuredText” is ONE word, not two!

  • reStructuredText Primer on Sphinx docs.

    reStructuredText is the default plaintext markup language used by Sphinx. This section is a brief introduction to reStructuredText (reST) concepts and syntax, intended to provide authors with enough information to author documents productively. Since reST was designed to be a simple, unobtrusive markup language, this will not take too long.

  • Restructured Text (reST) and Sphinx Cheatsheet
  • rST Quickstart by DocUtils
  • Sphinx

What is it?

reStructuredText is an easy-to-read, what-you-see-is-what-you-get plaintext markup syntax and parser system.

It is useful for in-line program documentation (such as Python docstrings), for quickly creating simple web pages, and for standalone documents.

reStructuredText is designed for extensibility for specific application domains…

What is it for?

The primary goal of reStructuredText is to define and implement a markup syntax for use in Python docstrings and other documentation domains, that is readable and simple, yet powerful enough for non-trivial use.

The intended purpose of the markup is the conversion of reStructuredText documents into useful structured data formats.