title: How to handle two dashes in ReST
body: <p>I'm using Sphinx to document a command line utility written in Python.  I want to be able to document a command line option, such as <code>--region</code> like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>**--region**  &lt;region_name&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>in ReST and then use Sphinx to to generate my HTML and man pages for me.</p>
  
  <p>This works great when generating man pages but in the generated HTML, the <code>--</code> gets turned into <code>-</code> which is incorrect.  I have found that if I change my source ReST document to look like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>**---region**  &lt;region_name&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The HTML generates correctly but now my man pages have <code>---</code> instead of <code>--</code>.  Also incorrect.</p>
  
  <p>I've tried escaping the dashes with a backslash character (e.g. <code>\-\-</code>) but that had no effect.</p>
  
  <p>Any help would be much appreciated.</p>