needs_external_needs: Support local needs.json

There is a (well-hidden) option in intersphinx to load the objects.in file from a local directory or one or more mirrors. I’m looking for a way to load an external needs.json file from a local directory.

This could be solved by adding an optional setting like “json_path”, which just loads a file instead of attempting HTTP download.

Use Case:

Given two projects, A and B, which are built locally, the following can be used to generate an external-needs mapping:

|- project_A/
|  |- build
|  |  |- needs.json
|  |  |- html/
|  |- src/
|  |  |- conf.py
|- project_B/
|  |- build/
|  |  |- needs.json
|  |  |- html/
|  |- src/
|  |  |- conf.py

project_B/src/conf.py:

needs_external_needs = [{json_path = "../../project_A/build/needs.json" ...}]

[arwedus]

Again: It works for me. IF you spell it file:///...

I actually wanted to create a local-build-only inter-sphinx inter-needs example project soon. It’s something you could link in the docs if you like. There are some tricks required to get it working 😉

[arwedus]

@twodrops @danwos, sorry, I was out of office in October!

The json_path option works fine but the relative base path feature I requested in this comment is not yet there. I will create a new issue for it and I hope you can somehow add it to 0.7.3 🙂