/Doc/library/pydoc.rst
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- :mod:`pydoc` --- Documentation generator and online help system
- ===============================================================
- .. module:: pydoc
- :synopsis: Documentation generator and online help system.
- .. moduleauthor:: Ka-Ping Yee <ping@lfw.org>
- .. sectionauthor:: Ka-Ping Yee <ping@lfw.org>
- .. versionadded:: 2.1
- .. index::
- single: documentation; generation
- single: documentation; online
- single: help; online
- The :mod:`pydoc` module automatically generates documentation from Python
- modules. The documentation can be presented as pages of text on the console,
- served to a Web browser, or saved to HTML files.
- The built-in function :func:`help` invokes the online help system in the
- interactive interpreter, which uses :mod:`pydoc` to generate its documentation
- as text on the console. The same text documentation can also be viewed from
- outside the Python interpreter by running :program:`pydoc` as a script at the
- operating system's command prompt. For example, running ::
- pydoc sys
- at a shell prompt will display documentation on the :mod:`sys` module, in a
- style similar to the manual pages shown by the Unix :program:`man` command. The
- argument to :program:`pydoc` can be the name of a function, module, or package,
- or a dotted reference to a class, method, or function within a module or module
- in a package. If the argument to :program:`pydoc` looks like a path (that is,
- it contains the path separator for your operating system, such as a slash in
- Unix), and refers to an existing Python source file, then documentation is
- produced for that file.
- .. note::
- In order to find objects and their documentation, :mod:`pydoc` imports the
- module(s) to be documented. Therefore, any code on module level will be
- executed on that occasion. Use an ``if __name__ == '__main__':`` guard to
- only execute code when a file is invoked as a script and not just imported.
- Specifying a :option:`-w` flag before the argument will cause HTML documentation
- to be written out to a file in the current directory, instead of displaying text
- on the console.
- Specifying a :option:`-k` flag before the argument will search the synopsis
- lines of all available modules for the keyword given as the argument, again in a
- manner similar to the Unix :program:`man` command. The synopsis line of a
- module is the first line of its documentation string.
- You can also use :program:`pydoc` to start an HTTP server on the local machine
- that will serve documentation to visiting Web browsers. :program:`pydoc`
- :option:`-p 1234` will start a HTTP server on port 1234, allowing you to browse
- the documentation at ``http://localhost:1234/`` in your preferred Web browser.
- :program:`pydoc` :option:`-g` will start the server and additionally bring up a
- small :mod:`Tkinter`\ -based graphical interface to help you search for
- documentation pages.
- When :program:`pydoc` generates documentation, it uses the current environment
- and path to locate modules. Thus, invoking :program:`pydoc` :option:`spam`
- documents precisely the version of the module you would get if you started the
- Python interpreter and typed ``import spam``.
- Module docs for core modules are assumed to reside in
- http://docs.python.org/library/. This can be overridden by setting the
- :envvar:`PYTHONDOCS` environment variable to a different URL or to a local
- directory containing the Library Reference Manual pages.