CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonterminology
Jason
Jason

Reputation: 63

Clarification on python terminology

I've written a piece of code:

def Greeting():
    return "Hello there!"
Greeting.help = "This function will say hello"

print(Greeting())
print(Greeting.help)

What I am unsure what the Greeting.help would be called... I've tried searching but i feel like i'm using the wrong search terms.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 121

Answers (2)

bipll
bipll

Reputation: 11940

You've set a single attribute of an object (a function object in this case).

If you wanted to document it, then a more traditional way is to set the docstring:

def Greeting():
    """ This function will say hello """
    return "Hello there!"

then it can be viewed via help(Greeting):

>>> def Greeting():
...     """ This function will say hello """
...     return "Hello there!"
...
>>> Greeting.__doc__
' This function will say hello '
>>> help(Greeting)

It prints:

Help on function Greeting in module __main__:

Greeting()
    This function will say hello
(END)

Upvotes: 2

timgeb
timgeb

Reputation: 78690

You have set an attribute on the object Greeting. That's why the corresponding functions are called getattr and setattr. 

>>> getattr(Greeting, 'help')
'This function will say hello'
>>> setattr(Greeting, 'foo', 'bar')

These attributes are stored within the dictionary Greeting.__dict__, which can also be accessed by vars(Greeting).

>>> Greeting.__dict__
{'foo': 'bar', 'help': 'This function will say hello'}
>>> vars(Greeting)
{'foo': 'bar', 'help': 'This function will say hello'}

Note that the idiomatic way to set a help/docstring goes as follows:

>>> def foo():
...     'help text'
...     pass
...
>>> foo.__doc__
'help text'

Upvotes: 3

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