Literal Blocks

Literal blocks render content verbatim inside a <pre> element. There are two ways to introduce them in reStructuredText.

Like Sphinx, a :: block is still syntax-highlighted: it names no language of its own, so it takes whichever one .. highlight:: last set.

Plain :: Introduction

A paragraph ending with :: introduces the following indented block as a literal block. The :: is either removed entirely (standalone) or reduced to a single : (when it follows text):

This is verbatim text.
It preserves all spacing and    gaps.

Blank lines inside the block are also preserved.

A standalone :: (with no preceding text) silently introduces the block without rendering any paragraph at all:

No paragraph is emitted for a standalone "::".

Only this literal block appears.

.. code-block:: Directive

The .. code-block:: directive takes a language and every presentation option Sphinx defines. Highlighting happens during the build, into HTML carrying one CSS class per token — see Code Blocks for the full set of options.

Python example:

def greet(name: str) -> str:
    return f"Hello, {name}!"

print(greet("World"))

Bash example:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -euo pipefail

for file in *.rst; do
    echo "Processing $file"
done

No-language code block (.. code-block:: without an argument):

plain verbatim content
no language class is emitted