Question

I know this question is very simple, I know it must have been asked a lot of times and I did my search on both SO and Google but I could not find the answer, probably due to my lack of ability of putting what I seek into a proper sentence.

I want to be able to read the docs of what I import.

For example if I import x by “import x”, I want to run this command, and have its docs printed in Python or ipython.

What is this command-function?

Thank you.

PS. I don’t mean dir(), I mean the function that will actually print the docs for me to see and read what functionalities etc. this module x has.

Answer 1

You can use the .__doc__ attribute of the module of function:

In [14]: import itertools

In [15]: print itertools.__doc__
Functional tools for creating and using iterators..........

In [18]: print itertools.permutations.__doc__
permutations(iterable[, r]) --> permutations object

Return successive r-length permutations of elements in the iterable.

permutations(range(3), 2) --> (0,1), (0,2), (1,0), (1,2), (2,0), (2,1)

Both of help() and __doc__ work fine on both inbuilt and on our own modules:

file: foo.py

def myfunc():
    """
    this is some info on myfunc

    """
    foo=2
    bar=3


In [4]: help(so27.myfunc)


In [5]: import foo

In [6]: print foo.myfunc.__doc__

     this is some info on func

In [7]: help(foo.myfunc)


Help on function myfunc in module foo:

myfunc()
    this is some info on func