Edit File: pydoc.txt
: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 **Source code:** :source:`Lib/pydoc.py` -------------- 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 ``-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 ``-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 -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 -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 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.