autoapi directory remains after using -c to specify conf.py outside directory of index.rst

[robinovitch61]

Hi team! Thanks for all the hard work you do on sphinx-autoapi.

I've outlined the bug in the repo here with working and not-working branches illustrating minimally viable examples.

README copy/pasted here:

This is a bug report for a strange bug with sphinx-autoapi.

When I run sphinx-build with a -c option to specify the conf.py location where the conf.py file is in a different location than the docs index, I get the following extension error:

dumping object inventory... done
build succeeded, 1 warning.

The HTML pages are in gen.

Extension error (autoapi.extension):
Handler <function build_finished at 0x10a2eae50> for event 'build-finished' threw an exception (exception: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/Users/leo/projects/test-autoapi/autoapi')

A new directory remains after running sphinx-build full of autoapi files that I believe should be removed.

Steps to Reproduce:

Python 3.8.2, MAC OS Big Sur, installed requirements.txt.

Happy path (working) branch of this directory:

.
├── code
│   └── test.py
├── docs
│   ├── conf.py
│   └── index.rst
├── gen
└── requirements.txt

Run:

# cd to root of this repo on `working` branch
rm -rf ./gen/*
sphinx-build -b html ./docs -c ./docs ./gen
python -m http.server --directory ./gen 8000

Visit http://localhost:8000, see contents.

"Bug" path (not-working branch of this directory:

.
├── code
│   └── test.py
├── conf.py
├── docs
│   └── index.rst
├── gen
└── requirements.txt

Run:

# cd to root of this repo on `not-working` branch
rm -rf ./gen/*
sphinx-build -b html ./docs -c . ./gen
python -m http.server --directory ./gen 8000

See error as described. Visit http://localhost:8000, see contents - looks ok.

But run:

ls docs

and see how autoapi directory remains. I suspect this is related to the error.

[robinovitch61]

Thanks so much for the fast bug fix @AWhetter !

[lost-theory]

@AWhetter Could you publish a new release to PyPI for this change? I am running into the same issue (using sphinx-multiversion) and confirmed that 17ffa2d fixed it. Thank you!