The new `trim_footnote_reference_space` config value mirrors

the docutils config value of the same name and removes the
space before a footnote reference that is necessary for reST
to recognize the reference.

CHANGES

@@ -64,6 +64,11 @@ New features added
   - The default value for ``htmlhelp_basename`` is now the project
     title, cleaned up as a filename.
 
+  - The new ``trim_footnote_reference_space`` config value mirrors
+    the docutils config value of the same name and removes the
+    space before a footnote reference that is necessary for reST
+    to recognize the reference.
+
 * Builders:
 
   - New builder for Qt help collections, by Antonio Valentino.

doc/config.rst

@@ -261,7 +261,14 @@ Project information
    A boolean that decides whether :dir:`moduleauthor` and :dir:`sectionauthor`
    directives produce any output in the built files.
 
+.. confval:: trim_footnote_reference_space
 
+   Trim spaces before footnote references that are necessary for the reST parser
+   to recognize the footnote, but do not look too nice in the output.
+
+   .. versionadded:: 0.6
+
+   
 .. _html-options:
 
 Options for HTML output

sphinx/config.py

@@ -45,6 +45,7 @@ class Config(object):
         default_role = (None, True),
         add_function_parentheses = (True, True),
         add_module_names = (True, True),
+        trim_footnote_reference_space = (False, True),
         show_authors = (False, True),
         pygments_style = ('sphinx', False),
         highlight_language = ('python', False),

sphinx/environment.py

@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ default_settings = {
 
 # This is increased every time an environment attribute is added
 # or changed to properly invalidate pickle files.
-ENV_VERSION = 27
+ENV_VERSION = 28
 
 
 default_substitutions = set([
@@ -517,6 +517,8 @@ class BuildEnvironment:
 
         self.docname = docname
         self.settings['input_encoding'] = self.config.source_encoding
+        self.settings['trim_footnote_reference_space'] = \
+            self.config.trim_footnote_reference_space
 
         class SphinxSourceClass(FileInput):
             def read(self):