Question

I’ve got a class that I’m adding a help-function to with setattr. The function is a properly created instancemethod and works like a charm.

import new
def add_helpfunc(obj):
    def helpfunc(self):
        """Nice readable docstring"""
        #code

    setattr(obj, "helpfunc", 
            new.instancemethod(helpfunc, obj, type(obj)))

However, when calling help on the object instance, the new method is not listed as a member of the object. I thought help (i.e. pydoc) used dir(), but dir() works and not help().

What do I have to do to get the help information updated?

Answer 1

I there a specific reason you do it the complicate way? Why not just doing it like this:

def add_helpfunc(obj):
    def helpfunc(self):
        """Nice readable docstring"""
        #code

    obj.helpfunc = helpfunc

Adding the method this way also fixes your help-problem if I am not wrong…

Example:

>>> class A:
...     pass
...
>>> add_helpfunc(A)
>>> help(A.helpfunc)
Help on method helpfunc in module __main__:

helpfunc(self) unbound __main__.A method
    Nice readable docstring

>>> help(A().helpfunc)
Help on method helpfunc in module __main__:

helpfunc(self) method of __main__.A instance
    Nice readable docstring