id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc	stage	has_patch	needs_docs	needs_tests	needs_better_patch	easy	ui_ux
36535	Ensure compatibility with docutils 0.19 through 0.22+ in admindocs	Natalia Bidart	Natalia Bidart	"Docutils 0.22 introduced a breaking-ish change that affects how the `writer` argument is handled in `docutils.core.publish_parts()`, which is used in admindocs' `parse_rst()`.

In version 0.22 and above, the `writer` argument can be an instance *or* a string. Earlier versions (0.19 through 0.21) only support passing the writer name as a string via `writer_name`, *or* passing an instance directly to `writer`, but not both interchangeably.

An earlier patch (65ab92f6a83644bbb555d0eff3a02d8d9301aba4) was backported to Django 5.2.x to avoid test failures and runtime errors with docutils 0.22+, since Django does not currently restrict the dependency beyond requiring version 0.19 or higher. However, that patch introduced a backward incompatibility with docutils < 0.22, which now fails due to the changed usage pattern.

To fix this, a version-agnostic approach is proposed: explicitly instantiate the writer and avoid use of `writer_name`. This ensures compatibility with all currently supported docutils versions without needing to bump the minimum required version.
"	Bug	closed	contrib.admindocs	5.2	Release blocker	fixed	parse_rst docutils		Ready for checkin	1	0	0	0	0	0