Permalink
Cannot retrieve contributors at this time
Name already in use
A tag already exists with the provided branch name. Many Git commands accept both tag and branch names, so creating this branch may cause unexpected behavior. Are you sure you want to create this branch?
peps/pep-0233.txt
Go to fileThis commit does not belong to any branch on this repository, and may belong to a fork outside of the repository.
This file contains bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
| PEP: 233 | |
| Title: Python Online Help | |
| Author: Paul Prescod <paul@prescod.net> | |
| Status: Deferred | |
| Type: Standards Track | |
| Content-Type: text/x-rst | |
| Created: 11-Dec-2000 | |
| Python-Version: 2.1 | |
| Post-History: | |
| Abstract | |
| ======== | |
| This PEP describes a command-line driven online help facility for | |
| Python. The facility should be able to build on existing | |
| documentation facilities such as the Python documentation and | |
| docstrings. It should also be extensible for new types and | |
| modules. | |
| Interactive use | |
| =============== | |
| Simply typing ``help`` describes the help function (through ``repr()`` | |
| overloading). | |
| ``help`` can also be used as a function. | |
| The function takes the following forms of input: | |
| * ``help( "string" )`` -- built-in topic or global | |
| * ``help( <ob> )`` -- docstring from object or type | |
| * ``help( "doc:filename" )`` -- filename from Python documentation | |
| If you ask for a global, it can be a fully-qualified name, such as:: | |
| help("xml.dom") | |
| You can also use the facility from a command-line:: | |
| python --help if | |
| In either situation, the output does paging similar to the ``more`` | |
| command. | |
| Implementation | |
| ============== | |
| The help function is implemented in an ``onlinehelp`` module which is | |
| demand-loaded. | |
| There should be options for fetching help information from | |
| environments other than the command line through the ``onlinehelp`` | |
| module:: | |
| onlinehelp.gethelp(object_or_string) -> string | |
| It should also be possible to override the help display function | |
| by assigning to ``onlinehelp.displayhelp(object_or_string)``. | |
| The module should be able to extract module information from | |
| either the HTML or LaTeX versions of the Python documentation. | |
| Links should be accommodated in a "lynx-like" manner. | |
| Over time, it should also be able to recognize when docstrings are | |
| in "special" syntaxes like structured text, HTML and LaTeX and | |
| decode them appropriately. | |
| A prototype implementation is available with the Python source | |
| distribution as ``nondist/sandbox/doctools/onlinehelp.py``. | |
| Built-in Topics | |
| =============== | |
| * ``help( "intro" )`` -- What is Python? Read this first! | |
| * ``help( "keywords" )`` -- What are the keywords? | |
| * ``help( "syntax" )`` -- What is the overall syntax? | |
| * ``help( "operators" )`` -- What operators are available? | |
| * ``help( "builtins" )`` -- What functions, types, etc. are built-in? | |
| * ``help( "modules" )`` -- What modules are in the standard library? | |
| * ``help( "copyright" )`` -- Who owns Python? | |
| * ``help( "moreinfo" )`` -- Where is there more information? | |
| * ``help( "changes" )`` -- What changed in Python 2.0? | |
| * ``help( "extensions" )`` -- What extensions are installed? | |
| * ``help( "faq" )`` -- What questions are frequently asked? | |
| * ``help( "ack" )`` -- Who has done work on Python lately? | |
| Security Issues | |
| =============== | |
| This module will attempt to import modules with the same names as | |
| requested topics. Don't use the modules if you are not confident | |
| that everything in your ``PYTHONPATH`` is from a trusted source. |