pydoc
¶
Generate Python documentation in HTML or text for interactive use.
In the Python interpreter, do “from pydoc import help” to provide online help. Calling help(thing) on a Python object documents the object.
Or, at the shell command line outside of Python:
Run “pydoc <name>” to show documentation on something. <name> may be the name of a function, module, package, or a dotted reference to a class or function within a module or module in a package. If the argument contains a path segment delimiter (e.g. slash on Unix, backslash on Windows) it is treated as the path to a Python source file.
Run “pydoc -k <keyword>” to search for a keyword in the synopsis lines of all available modules.
Run “pydoc -p <port>” to start an HTTP server on a given port on the local machine to generate documentation web pages. Port number 0 can be used to get an arbitrary unused port.
For platforms without a command line, “pydoc -g” starts the HTTP server and also pops up a little window for controlling it.
Run “pydoc -w <name>” to write out the HTML documentation for a module to a file named “<name>.html”.
Module docs for core modules are assumed to be in
This can be overridden by setting the PYTHONDOCS environment variable to a different URL or to a local directory containing the Library Reference Manual pages.
Functions¶
allmethods (cl) |
|
apropos (key) |
Print all the one-line module summaries that contain a substring. |
classify_class_attrs (object) |
Wrap inspect.classify_class_attrs, with fixup for data descriptors. |
classname (object, modname) |
Get a class name and qualify it with a module name if necessary. |
cli () |
Command-line interface (looks at sys.argv to decide what to do). |
cram (text, maxlen) |
Omit part of a string if needed to make it fit in a maximum length. |
describe (thing) |
Produce a short description of the given thing. |
doc (thing[, title, forceload]) |
Display text documentation, given an object or a path to an object. |
expandtabs ((s [,tabsize]) -> string) |
Return a copy of the string s with all tab characters replaced by the appropriate number of spaces, depending on the current column, and the tabsize (default 8). |
extract_tb (tb[, limit]) |
Return list of up to limit pre-processed entries from traceback. |
find ((s, sub [,start [,end]]) -> in) |
Return the lowest index in s where substring sub is found, such that sub is contained within s[start,end]. |
getdoc (object) |
Get the doc string or comments for an object. |
getpager () |
Decide what method to use for paging through text. |
gui () |
Graphical interface (starts web server and pops up a control window). |
importfile (path) |
Import a Python source file or compiled file given its path. |
isdata (object) |
Check if an object is of a type that probably means it’s data. |
ispackage (path) |
Guess whether a path refers to a package directory. |
ispath (x) |
|
join ((list [,sep]) -> string) |
Return a string composed of the words in list, with intervening occurrences of sep. |
locate (path[, forceload]) |
Locate an object by name or dotted path, importing as necessary. |
lower ((s) -> string) |
Return a copy of the string s converted to lowercase. |
pager (text) |
The first time this is called, determine what kind of pager to use. |
pathdirs () |
Convert sys.path into a list of absolute, existing, unique paths. |
pipepager (text, cmd) |
Page through text by feeding it to another program. |
plain (text) |
Remove boldface formatting from text. |
plainpager (text) |
Simply print unformatted text. |
render_doc (thing[, title, forceload]) |
Render text documentation, given an object or a path to an object. |
replace (text, *pairs) |
Do a series of global replacements on a string. |
resolve (thing[, forceload]) |
Given an object or a path to an object, get the object and its name. |
rfind ((s, sub [,start [,end]]) -> int) |
Return the highest index in s where substring sub is found, such that sub is contained within s[start,end]. |
rstrip ((s [,chars]) -> string) |
Return a copy of the string s with trailing whitespace removed. |
safeimport (path[, forceload, cache]) |
Import a module; handle errors; return None if the module isn’t found. |
serve (port[, callback, completer]) |
|
source_synopsis (file) |
|
split ((s [,sep [,maxsplit]]) -> list of strings) |
Return a list of the words in the string s, using sep as the delimiter string. |
splitdoc (doc) |
Split a doc string into a synopsis line (if any) and the rest. |
strip ((s [,chars]) -> string) |
Return a copy of the string s with leading and trailing whitespace removed. |
stripid (text) |
Remove the hexadecimal id from a Python object representation. |
synopsis (filename[, cache]) |
Get the one-line summary out of a module file. |
tempfilepager (text, cmd) |
Page through text by invoking a program on a temporary file. |
ttypager (text) |
Page through text on a text terminal. |
visiblename (name[, all, obj]) |
Decide whether to show documentation on a variable. |
writedoc (thing[, forceload]) |
Write HTML documentation to a file in the current directory. |
writedocs (dir[, pkgpath, done]) |
Write out HTML documentation for all modules in a directory tree. |
Classes¶
Doc |
|
HTMLDoc |
Formatter class for HTML documentation. |
HTMLRepr () |
Class for safely making an HTML representation of a Python object. |
Helper ([input, output]) |
|
ModuleScanner |
An interruptible scanner that searches module synopses. |
Repr () |
|
Scanner (roots, children, descendp) |
A generic tree iterator. |
TextDoc |
Formatter class for text documentation. |
TextRepr () |
Class for safely making a text representation of a Python object. |
deque |
deque([iterable[, maxlen]]) –> deque object |
Exceptions¶
ErrorDuringImport (filename, exc_info) |
Errors that occurred while trying to import something to document it. |