CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
Mahesh Nadar
Mahesh Nadar

Reputation: 487

Comments compared to string in python

I am just new to python.
as i know in python multi-line comments are made like this

"""
this is a comments
"""

but consider this code

somevariable="""this is a variable"""
print somevariable

it prints this is a variable
are comments and strings are same in python or they are different?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 127

Answers (8)

Markus Unterwaditzer
Markus Unterwaditzer

Reputation: 8244

The confusion comes through docstrings.

This is actually not a comment, but a way to make a string with multiple lines:

>>> """This is a string
... with line breaks"""
'This is a string\nwith line breaks'

The same notation is used in classes and functions to document them:

>>> def my_function():
...     """This function does stupid things."""
...     return 1/0
...
>>> my_function.__doc__
'This function does stupid things.'
>>> my_function()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 3, in my_function
ZeroDivisionError: division by zero

So your code:

somevariable = """this is a variable"""

is really just equal to:

somevariable = "this is a variable"

Upvotes: 1

shx2
shx2

Reputation: 64318

are comments and strings the same in python?

Strictly speaking, they are not the same. But in your question, what you refer to as "a comment" is actually a string. A comment is everything appearing in the same line after the # character.

a.py:

"""
comment1
"""
# comment2

Now:

% strings a.pyc | grep comment
comment1

As you can see, comment2 is not part of the compiled byte code, while comment1 is -- because it's not a comment, it's a string.

As others pointed out, the string is considered a docstring. docstrings are conventionally used for documenting your code, while comments are used, well, for commenting, and are not included in the documentation.

Upvotes: 2

Elazar
Elazar

Reputation: 21595

>>> somevariable="""
... this is not a comment
... """
>>> print(somevariable)

this is not a comment

Upvotes: 1

Imre Kerr
Imre Kerr

Reputation: 2428

The first one isn't a comment, it's a string. But since you're not doing anything with that string (printing it, assigning it to a variable etc.) all the interpreter does is say "Yup, that's a string alright!" and ignore it entirely. Effectively making it the same as a comment, since it's an arbitrary bunch of text that's ignored by the interpreter.

Upvotes: 5

Daniel Roseman
Daniel Roseman

Reputation: 599600

The first snippet is not a comment. It is a string. Comments in Python are prefixed by the # character.

Upvotes: 1

Stefan Strijker
Stefan Strijker

Reputation: 81

Yes, they are the same

It is called a docstring You can find more information about this type of string here: http://www.pythonforbeginners.com/basics/python-docstrings/

Upvotes: 2

Koterpillar
Koterpillar

Reputation: 8104

Yes, they are the same. It is a convention to include a comment string as the first statement of the function or a class.

See PEP 257 -- Docstring Conventions.

Upvotes: 1

Jon Clements
Jon Clements

Reputation: 142146

There are no multi-line comments in Python. They're both just strings. The former is typically used as a docstring and will be associated with the function/class/module, while the other gets assigned to a variable.

Upvotes: 4

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