Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!newsfeed.hal-mli.net!feeder1.hal-mli.net!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news-out.octanews.net!indigo.octanews.net!news.glorb.com!news-xfer.nntp.sonic.net!news.astraweb.com!border6.newsrouter.astraweb.com!not-for-mail From: Ben Finney Newsgroups: comp.lang.python Subject: Re: how to inherit docstrings? References: <95cvmqF5b0U1@mid.individual.net> X-Public-Key-ID: 0xAC128405 X-Public-Key-Fingerprint: 517C F14B B2F3 98B0 CB35 4855 B8B2 4C06 AC12 8405 X-Public-Key-URL: http://www.benfinney.id.au/contact/bfinney-pubkey.asc X-Post-From: Ben Finney Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2011 09:23:49 +1000 Message-ID: <87ei32wpve.fsf@benfinney.id.au> User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:2Ud+Xd11VjR+T1mNg66RJ0mdNyg= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Lines: 17 Organization: Unlimited download news at news.astraweb.com NNTP-Posting-Host: d2e982c4.news.astraweb.com X-Trace: DXC=^8lm_?ZbMD\1IA2mQNenURL?0kYOcDh@ZW\:Hm@YlDbZWlC10KJ@fh_UGD@iN[Hd?_?Sh7;hLXdUQ Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.python:7330 Gregory Ewing writes: > IMO, it shouldn't be necessary to explicitly copy docstrings around > like this in the first place. Either it should happen automatically, > or help() should be smart enough to look up the inheritance hierarchy > when given a method that doesn't have a docstring of its own. Since the docstrings are useful in more places than just ‘help’, I'm +1 on having docstrings be automatically inherited if not specified. Would the OP like to propose this on ‘python-ideas’? -- \ “Odious ideas are not entitled to hide from criticism behind | `\ the human shield of their believers' feelings.” —Richard | _o__) Stallman | Ben Finney