Use DocHelper to simplify your python docstrings

If you have been writing classes or functions with many shared arguments, you might have going through the tedious and error prone process of copy-pasting, searching-updating same docstring again and again. Passing through **kwargs might not always be the solution not to say it's implicit and makes user to look up multiple documents to find available arguments.

So how about one place to store and update them all? DocHelper keeps the docstrings for arguments in the same place and you only need to write the template for each class or functions - it will compose and fill in the template in Google format.

Works from Jupyter notebook to Sphinx where docstrings were read by importing.

Installation

Install using pip (recommended)

pip install doc-helper

Install from source

# make sure you have setuptools and wheel installed

git clone https://github.com/ynshen/DocHelper.git
cd DocHelper
python setup.py bdist_wheel
pip install dist/the-wheel-file-of-your-version.whl

Usage

Initialize a DocHelper with argument docstrings

from doc_helper import DocHelper

my_doc = DocHelper(
    arg1='Just an simple argument',           # defined as keyword arguments
    arg2=('Also an simple argument'),         # or a (not really) tuple
    arg3=('int', 'This argument is integer')  # tuple with data type
)

Add arguments when you needed

my_doc.add(
    arg4=('pd.DataFrame', 'Just a new argument')
)

Use DocHelper.get() to get formatted docstring for arguments

# Pass a list/tuple of argument names to `DocHelper.get()`
>>> print(my_doc.get(['arg1', 'arg3'], indent_at_top=False))
arg1: Just an simple argument
    arg3 (int): This argument is integer

# control behavior through `indent`, `indent_at_top`, and `sep`
>>> print(my_doc.get(['arg1', 'arg3'], indent_at_top=True, indent=8, sep='|\n'))
        arg1: Just an simple argument|
        arg3 (int): This argument is integer

# Pass a callable (function) to automatic find related arguments (except 'self')
def awesome_function(arg1, arg3):
    pass

>>> print(my_doc.get(awesome_function, indent_at_top=True))
    arg1: Just an simple argument
    arg3 (int): This argument is integer

Use decorator DocHelper.compose to write template

Simply write a string with comma separated arguments name in << and >>. Default indents is 4, just add a number to change to desired indents.

# Example 1

@my_doc.compose("""This is my awesome function
Args:
    <<arg1, arg2>>
    arg3: This arg3 is special
""")
def awesome_function(arg1, arg2, arg3):
    pass
 
>>> print(awesome_function.__doc__)
This is my awesome function
Args:
    arg1: Just an simple argument
    arg2: Also an simple argument
    arg3: This arg3 is special


# Example 2

@my_doc.compose("""This is another awesome function only takes arg1, arg3, and I want indent = 8
Args:
<<arg1, arg2, 8>>
""", indent_at_top=True)
def another_awesome_function(arg1, arg3):
    pass

>>> print(another_awesome_function.__doc__)
This is another awesome function only takes arg1, arg3, and I wand indent = 8
Args:
        arg1: Just an simple argument
        arg3 (int): This argument is integer

# Example 3

@my_doc.compose("""Feeling lazy? left it blank to include all arguments (except 'self')
Args:
    <<>>
""")
def another_another_awesome_function(arg1, arg2, arg3):
    pass

>>> print(another_another_awesome_function.__doc__)
Feeling lazy? left it blank to include all arguments (except 'self')
Args:
    arg1: Just an simple argument
    arg2: Also an simple argument
    arg3 (int): This argument is integer

Update

• version 1.1.1: indents at the top of << >> can be controlled through DocHelper.compose(indent_at_top=False/True), default False.
• version 1.1.0: extra indents at the top of each lines were subtracted

TODO

• Add docstring formatting function to subtract extra indents
• Include different formatting (Numpy, reStructuredText)