ref: 03852d94083a33e0b10762c2225f2015f23c49d5
dir: /sys/src/cmd/python/Doc/lib/libpydoc.tex/
\section{\module{pydoc} --- Documentation generator and online help system} \declaremodule{standard}{pydoc} \modulesynopsis{Documentation generator and online help system.} \moduleauthor{Ka-Ping Yee}{[email protected]} \sectionauthor{Ka-Ping Yee}{[email protected]} \versionadded{2.1} \index{documentation!generation} \index{documentation!online} \index{help!online} The \module{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 \function{help()} invokes the online help system in the interactive interpreter, which uses \module{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 \begin{verbatim} pydoc sys \end{verbatim} at a shell prompt will display documentation on the \refmodule{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. Specifying a \programopt{-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 \programopt{-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} \programopt{-p 1234} will start a HTTP server on port 1234, allowing you to browse the documentation at \code{http://localhost:1234/} in your preferred Web browser. \program{pydoc} \programopt{-g} will start the server and additionally bring up a small \refmodule{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} \programopt{spam} documents precisely the version of the module you would get if you started the Python interpreter and typed \samp{import spam}. Module docs for core modules are assumed to reside in {}\url{http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/}. 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.