Question

I find the official Python documentation a nightmare to navigate, but I love railsapi. Does anyone know of a browser for the Python standard library documentation with similar features to railsapi? Specifically the class browser sidebar and realtime search.

EDIT: I’m familiar with pydoc and it’s not really much of an improvement over the online docs, IMO.

Answer 1

iPython, an interactive Python shell replacement (read: enhancement), includes the ?? operator, which gives you a convenient printout of the pydoc information.

For example:

In [5]: eval??
Type:       builtin_function_or_method
Base Class: <type 'builtin_function_or_method'>
String Form:    <built-in function eval>
Namespace:  Python builtin
Docstring [source file open failed]:
    eval(source[, globals[, locals]]) -> value

    Evaluate the source in the context of globals and locals.
    The source may be a string representing a Python expression
    or a code object as returned by compile().
    The globals must be a dictionary and locals can be any mapping,
    defaulting to the current globals and locals.
    If only globals is given, locals defaults to it.

Might not be exactly what you’re looking for, but it’s a great way to interact with Python’s documentations.