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Inherits method docstrings from parent classes.

Python, 33 lines
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import inspect


def inheritdocstrings(cls):
    """A class decorator for inheriting method docstrings.

    >>> class A(object):
    ...   class_attr = True
    ...   def method(self):
    ...     '''Method docstring.'''

    >>> @inheritdocstrings
    ... class B(A):
    ...   def method(self):
    ...     pass

    >>> B.method.__doc__
    'Method docstring.'
    """
    for name, cls_attr in inspect.getmembers(cls, callable):
        if not name.startswith('_') and not cls_attr.__doc__:
            for c in cls.mro():
                if c is cls:
                    continue
                attr = c.__dict__.get(name)
                if attr and attr.__doc__:
                    try:
                        cls_attr.__func__.__doc__ = attr.__doc__
                    except (AttributeError, TypeError):
                        # Probably a read-only attribute, swallow it.
                        pass
                    break
    return cls

Other recipes exist for inheriting docstrings on a per-method basis. This recipe is a class decorator that inherits docstrings for all methods on a class, making it less fine-grained but easier to use.

4 comments

James Mills 14 years ago  # | flag

Doesn't Python and pydoc already support this ?

cheers James Mills (prologic)

Alec Thomas (author) 14 years ago  # | flag

Not that I've seen.

Gabriel Genellina 14 years ago  # | flag

You should put stronger tests when iterating - non-method attributes raise errors.

nikratio 10 years, 9 months ago  # | flag

One drawback of this approach is that the docstring is only assigned after the class body has been executed, and therefore not accessible for any other decorators. But avoiding that would probably require using a metaclass and a special implementation of the class dictionary that updates docstrings immediately after assignment... pretty complicated.