[Python-Dev] query: docstring formatting in python distutils code (original) (raw)

Michael Foord fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk
Wed Jul 7 18:09:40 CEST 2010

On 07/07/2010 17:06, Shashwat Anand wrote:

On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 9:24 PM, C. Titus Brown <ctb at msu.edu_ _<mailto:ctb at msu.edu>> wrote: Hi all, over on the fellowship o' the packaging mailing list, one of our GSoC students (merwok) asked about how much formatting info should go into Python stdlib docstrings. Right now the stdlib docstrings are primarily text, AFAIK; but with the switch to Sphinx for the official Python docs, should we permit ReST-general and/or Sphinx-specific markup in docstrings? Hmm, I don't actually see that the stdlib docstrings are imported into the Python documentation anywhere, so maybe the use of Sphinx isn't that relevant. But how about ReST in general? So will we be able to use .docs within python interpretor, which is quite handy feature. >>> print(os.getcwd.doc) getcwd() -> path Return a string representing the current working directory. Also some python interpretors like bpython uses it ; a snapshot here - http://cl.ly/c5bb3be4a01d9d44732f So will it be ok to break them ?

Using ReST won't break these tools, but may make the output less readable.

I would say that the major use of docstrings is for interactive help - so interactive readability should be the most important (but perhaps not only) factor when considering how to format standard library docstrings.

Michael

See http://sphinx.pocoo.org/markup/index.html for sphinx-specific markup constructs. thanks, --titus -- C. Titus Brown, ctb at msu.edu <mailto:ctb at msu.edu>

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