[Python-Dev] Quick poll: should help() show bound arguments? (original) (raw)

Ethan Furman ethan at stoneleaf.us
Sun Jan 26 02:24:20 CET 2014

On 01/25/2014 04:34 AM, Chris Angelico wrote:

On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 3:07 PM, Larry Hastings <larry at hastings.org> wrote:

What should it be? A) pydoc and help() should not show bound parameters in the signature, like inspect.signature. Vote for A. As far as I'm concerned, all these foo are equally callable and equally take one parameter named a:

[snip]

To strengthen this argument:

--> import inspect --> from functools import partial --> def lots_of_args(a, b, c, d=3, e='wow', f=None): ... print(a, b, c, d, e, f) ... --> str(inspect.signature(lots_of_args)) "(a, b, c, d=3, e='wow', f=None)"

--> curried = partial(lots_of_args, 9, f='Some') --> str(inspect.signature(curried)) "(b, c, d=3, e='wow', f='Some')"

While I partially agree with Antoine that the whole self thing is confusing, I think it would be more accurate to only give help (and a signature) on parameters that you can actually change; if you are calling a bound method there is no way to pass in something else in place of self.

So I vote for A.

-- Ethan

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