In this tutorial, you'll learn how to view Python documentation using the pydoc module.
In Python, the pydoc module is a document generator. You can view the documentation on the console, in the browser, and save as HTML pages using the pydoc. Below are the examples:
Generate Documentation for Python Using Pydoc
First, check the pydoc module options. Open the command prompt in Windows or terminal in Linux and give the following commands:
python -m pydoc
Output
pydoc - the Python documentation tool
pydoc <name> ...
Show text documentation on something. <name> may be the name of a
Python keyword, topic, function, module, or package, or a dotted
reference to a class or function within a module or module in a
package. If <name> contains a '\', it is used as the path to a
Python source file to document. If name is 'keywords', 'topics',
or 'modules', a listing of these things is displayed.
pydoc -k <keyword>
Search for a keyword in the synopsis lines of all available modules.
pydoc -n <hostname>
Start an HTTP server with the given hostname (default: localhost).
pydoc -p <port>
Start an HTTP server on the given port on the local machine. Port
number 0 can be used to get an arbitrary unused port.
pydoc -b
Start an HTTP server on an arbitrary unused port and open a Web browser
to interactively browse documentation. This option can be used in
combination with -n and/or -p.
pydoc -w <name> ...
Write out the HTML documentation for a module to a file in the current
directory. If <name> contains a '\', it is treated as a filename; if
it names a directory, documentation is written for all the contents.
Now we will check the above options for pydoc one by one.
pydoc <name>
View the documentation for any Python command. Below is an example to view the help doc for if condition:
python -m pydoc if
Output
The "if" statement
******************
The "if" statement is used for conditional execution:
if_stmt ::= "if" expression ":" suite
( "elif" expression ":" suite )*
["else" ":" suite]
It selects exactly one of the suites by evaluating the expressions one
by one until one is found to be true (see section Boolean operations
for the definition of true and false); then that suite is executed
(and no other part of the "if" statement is executed or evaluated).
If all expressions are false, the suite of the "else" clause, if
present, is executed.
Related help topics: TRUTHVALUE
pydoc -k <keyword>
To find a keyword in Python documentation use -k option. In the following example, it will search the documentation for keyword XML:
python -m pydoc -k XML
Output (Displaying few lines)
test.test_docxmlrpc test.test_xml_dom_minicompat test.test_xml_etree test.test_xml_etree_c test.test_xmlrpc test.test_xmlrpc_net test.xmltests xml - Core XML support for Python. xml.dom - W3C Document Object Model implementation for Python. xml.dom.NodeFilter xml.dom.domreg - Registration facilities for DOM. This module should not be used xml.dom.expatbuilder - Facility to use the Expat parser to load a minidom instance xml.dom.minicompat - Python version compatibility support for minidom. ....
pydoc -p <port>
Python will create an HTTP server for the given port number for the documentation. For example, if you will specify the port 321, then you can view the Python documentation on URL http://localhost:321. Below is an example:
python -m pydoc -p 321
Output
Server ready at http://localhost:321/ Server commands: [b]rowser, [q]uit server>
When you open the above URL in the browser, you will get the output as shown in the featured image of this article. At the server prompt, press b to open the browser and press q to exit.
pydoc -b
When you use pydoc with -b option, it will create and start the server with the port available on the local machine. Below is an example:
python -m pydoc -b
Output
Server ready at http://localhost:60806/ Server commands: [b]rowser, [q]uit server>
It will open the browser window automatically using the above URL.
pydoc -w <name>
Pydoc with -w <name> option, create out an HTML documentation for a module to a file in the current directory. Below is an example:
F:\md python_docs F:\cd python_docs F:\python_docs\python -m pydoc -w xml wrote xml.html
You will find the document xml.html in the f:\python_docs directory and the content of that file would be as shown in the below image:
