Pydoc

Last updated

Pydoc is the standard documentation module for the programming language Python. Similar to the functionality of Perldoc within Perl and Javadoc within Java, Pydoc allows Python programmers to access Python's documentation help files, generate text and HTML pages with documentation specifics, and find the appropriate module for a particular job. [1]

Contents

Pydoc can be accessed from a module-specific GUI, [2] from within the Python interpreter, or from a command line shell. [1] [3]

Developed by Ka-Ping Yee, [4] [5] it is included by default in all versions of Python since Python 2.1 and is available for download for 1.5.2, 1.6, and 2.0. [3]

Pydoc is used to extract documentation from the source code itself. More comprehensive documentation is generated from external reStructuredText documents using the Sphinx documentation system.

See also

Related Research Articles

Python (programming language) General-purpose programming language

Python is a high-level general-purpose programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability with the use of significant indentation. Its language constructs and object-oriented approach aim to help programmers write clear, logical code for small- and large-scale projects.

In computing, serialization or serialisation is the process of translating a data structure or object state into a format that can be stored or transmitted and reconstructed later. When the resulting series of bits is reread according to the serialization format, it can be used to create a semantically identical clone of the original object. For many complex objects, such as those that make extensive use of references, this process is not straightforward. Serialization of object-oriented objects does not include any of their associated methods with which they were previously linked.

Visual Basic .NET Object-oriented computer programming language

Visual Basic, originally called Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), is a multi-paradigm, object-oriented programming language, implemented on .NET, Mono, and the .NET Framework. Microsoft launched VB.NET in 2002 as the successor to its original Visual Basic language, the last version of which was Visual Basic 6.0. Although the ".NET" portion of the name was dropped in 2005, this article uses "Visual Basic [.NET]" to refer to all Visual Basic languages released since 2002, in order to distinguish between them and the classic Visual Basic. Along with C# and F#, it is one of the three main languages targeting the .NET ecosystem. As of March 11, 2020, Microsoft announced that evolution of the VB.NET language has concluded.

GNU GRUB Boot loader package

GNU GRUB is a boot loader package from the GNU Project. GRUB is the reference implementation of the Free Software Foundation's Multiboot Specification, which provides a user the choice to boot one of multiple operating systems installed on a computer or select a specific kernel configuration available on a particular operating system's partitions.

reStructuredText is a file format for textual data used primarily in the Python programming language community for technical documentation.

PyQt

PyQt is a Python binding of the cross-platform GUI toolkit Qt, implemented as a Python plug-in. PyQt is free software developed by the British firm Riverbank Computing. It is available under similar terms to Qt versions older than 4.5; this means a variety of licenses including GNU General Public License (GPL) and commercial license, but not the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). PyQt supports Microsoft Windows as well as various flavours of UNIX, including Linux and MacOS.

wxPython

wxPython is a wrapper for the cross-platform GUI API wxWidgets for the Python programming language. It is one of the alternatives to Tkinter. It is implemented as a Python extension module.

IronPython is an implementation of the Python programming language targeting the .NET Framework and Mono. Jim Hugunin created the project and actively contributed to it up until Version 1.0 which was released on September 5, 2006. IronPython 2.0 was released on December 10, 2008. After version 1.0 it was maintained by a small team at Microsoft until the 2.7 Beta 1 release. Microsoft abandoned IronPython in late 2010, after which Hugunin left to work at Google. The project is currently maintained by a group of volunteers at GitHub. It is free and open-source software, and can be implemented with Python Tools for Visual Studio, which is a free and open-source extension for Microsoft's Visual Studio IDE.

Single-source publishing, also known as single-sourcing publishing, is a content management method which allows the same source content to be used across different forms of media and more than one time. The labor-intensive and expensive work of editing need only be carried out once, on only one document; that source document can then be stored in one place and reused. This reduces the potential for error, as corrections are only made one time in the source document.

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of documentation generators. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. Unless otherwise specified in footnotes, comparisons are based on the stable versions without any add-ons, extensions or external programs. Note that many of the generators listed are no longer maintained.

In programming, a docstring is a string literal specified in source code that is used, like a comment, to document a specific segment of code. Unlike conventional source code comments, or even specifically formatted comments like Javadoc documentation, docstrings are not stripped from the source tree when it is parsed and are retained throughout the runtime of the program. This allows the programmer to inspect these comments at run time, for instance as an interactive help system, or as metadata.

CMake Cross-platform, compiler-independent build system generator

In software development, CMake is cross-platform free and open-source software for build automation, testing, packaging and installation of software by using a compiler-independent method. CMake is not a build system but rather it generates another system's build files. It supports directory hierarchies and applications that depend on multiple libraries. It is used in conjunction with native build environments such as Make, Qt Creator, Ninja, Android Studio, Apple's Xcode, and Microsoft Visual Studio. It has minimal dependencies, requiring only a C++ compiler on its own build system.

The syntax of the Python programming language is the set of rules that defines how a Python program will be written and interpreted. The Python language has many similarities to Perl, C, and Java. However, there are some definite differences between the languages.

Silverstripe CMS

Silverstripe CMS is a free and open source content management system (CMS) and framework for creating and maintaining websites and web applications. It provides an out of the box web-based administration panel that enables users to make modifications to parts of the website, which includes a WYSIWYG website editor. The core of the software is Silverstripe Framework, a PHP Web application framework.

Roundup is an open-source issue or bug tracking system featuring a command-line, web and e-mail interface. It is written in Python and designed to be highly customizable. Roundup was designed by Ka-Ping Yee for the Software Carpentry project and was developed from 2001-2016 under the direction of Richard Jones. Since then it has been developed by the Roundup community. It is currently the issue tracker for the Python programming language itself. It was once described as "like Bugzilla without the six years of training, or RT without that tedious MySQL rubbish."

Pdoc

Pdoc is a software package for generating API documentation for Python programming language. Built as a successor to Epydoc, Pdoc uses introspection to extract documentation from source code docstrings and allows programmers to generate HTML documentation for chosen Python modules. It is thus functionally similar to Pydoc, Perldoc and Javadoc. It supports identifier cross-linking and Markdown for its doc string format.

Sphinx is a fulltext search engine that provides text search functionality to client applications.

Web2py is an open-source web application framework written in the Python programming language. Web2py allows web developers to program dynamic web content using Python. Web2py is designed to help reduce tedious web development tasks, such as developing web forms from scratch, although a web developer may build a form from scratch if required.

Sphinx is a documentation generator written and used by the Python community. It is written in Python, and also used in other environments.


The Wing Python IDE family of integrated development environments (IDEs) from Wingware was created specifically for the Python programming language, with support for editing, testing, debugging, inspecting/browsing, and error checking Python code.

References

  1. 1 2 Pydoc. Accessed 11/27/2010
  2. Using Pydoc. Accessed 11/27/2010
  3. 1 2 Charming Python: pydoc and distutils modules. Accessed 01/01/2012
  4. "Ka-Ping Yee: Curriculum Vitae".
  5. "PEP 256 -- Docstring Processing System Framework".