Question

I am wondering if there is a CLI like ‘man.py’ dedicated to Python?

ex,

man.py os.system
> system(command) -> exit_status
>
> Execute the command (a string) in a subshell.

Answer 1

The easiest way is using pydoc function on the shell, with function being either the name of a builtin or the qualified name (module.function) of a function in a module:

> PAGER=cat pydoc urllib.urlencode
[adrian@hades:~]> PAGER=cat pydoc urllib.urlencode
Help on function urlencode in urllib:

urllib.urlencode = urlencode(query, doseq=0)
    Encode a sequence of two-element tuples or dictionary into a URL query string.
...

(PAGER=cat was only used to make it copy&pastable here)

When using IPython you can use function? to view the docstring of function or function?? for a more verbose view that includes the full sourcecode for functions written in python.

In the normal python shell you can use help(function) for this. However, in my opinion the IPython way is more comfortable.