Re: doc/help/apropos for python

Martin Green (martin.a.green@hydro.on.ca)
Tue, 23 Nov 1993 09:56:39 -0500

On November 23 at 02:58:22 you (Mats Lidell) wrote:
[...]
> The last idea attracts me. If you want documentation for say the
> module string you'll do something like this:
>
> import doc-string
> print doc-string.<class, method, etc ...>
>
> Maybe this could be done at "module-compile-time". I guess what I'm
> really saying is that I want the documentation stored in a separate
> file so that you won't have to scan piles of text when you don't want
> to have it.

Emacs builds a DOC file, with all the documentation strings for
built-in and pre-loaded functions and variables, at compile time. The
executable then contains pointers (offsets) into the DOC file. This
should also work for Python. A module.doc file could be generated at
module-compile-time, in addition to module.pyc. With some
forethought, the *.doc files could have appropriate markup commands
to support apropos, searching, manual browsing, and printing.

Martin A. Green Net : green@rd.hydro.on.ca
Ontario Hydro Technologies Tel : (416) 207-5745
800 Kipling Ave, KR260 FAX : (416) 207-5622
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA, M8Z5S4