[Python-Dev] Pre-PEP Idea

[Paul Prescod]

Hopefully this transcript will speak for itself...mostly.

>>> help
| The help function allows you to read help on Python's various 
| functions, objects, instructions and modules. You have two options:
|
| 1. Use help( obj ) to browse the help attached to some function, 
|  module, class or other object. e.g. help( dir )
|
| 2. Use help( "somestring" ) to browse help on one of the predefined 
|  help topics, unassociated with any particular object:
|
| help( "intro" )	- What is Python?
| help( "keywords" )	- What are the keywords?
| help( "syntax" )	- What is the overall syntax?
| help( "operators" )	- What operators are available?
| help( "types" )	- What types are built-in (not extension types)?
| help( "exceptions" )	- What exceptions can be raised?
| help( "modules" )      - What modules are in the standard library?
| help( "copyright" )	- Who owns Python?
| help( "moreinfo" )	- Where is there more information?
| help( "changes" )	- What changed in Python 2.0?
| help( "extensions" )   - What extensions are installed?
| help( "faq" )          - What questions are frequently asked?
| help( "ack" )	        - Who has done work on Python lately?
| help( "language" )     - Change the language of the help function
>>>
>>> help( "keywords" )
| "if"       - Conditional execution
| "while"    - Loop while a condition is true
| "for"      - Loop over a sequence of values (often numbers)
| "try"      - Set up an exception handler
| "def"      - Define a named function
| "class"    - Define a class
| "assert"   - Check that some code is working as you expect it to.
| "pass"     - Do nothing
| "del"      - Delete a data value
| "print"    - Print a value
| "return"   - Return information from a function
| "raise"    - Raise an exception
| "break"    - Terminate a loop
| "continue" - Skip to the next loop statement
| "import"   - Import a module
| "global"   - Declare a variable global
| "exec"     - Execute some dynamically generated code
| "lambda"   - Define an unnamed function

| For more information, type e.g. help("assert")
>>>
>>> help( dir )
| dir([object]) -> list of strings
| Return an alphabetized list of names comprising (some of) the
attributes
| of the given object.  Without an argument, the names in the current
scope
| are listed.  With an instance argument, only the instance attributes
are
| returned.  With a class argument, attributes of the base class are not
| returned.  For other types or arguments, this may list members or
methods.
>>>
>>> import pickle
>>> help( pickle )
| create portable serialized representations of Python objects.
| See module cPickle for a (much) faster implementation.
| See module copy_reg for a mechanism for registering custom picklers.
| Classes:
|     Pickler
|     Unpickler
| Functions:
|     dump(object, file)
|     dumps(object) -> string
|     load(file) -> object
|     loads(string) -> object
| Misc variables:
|     __version__
|     format_version
|    compatible_formats
>>>

-- 
 Paul Prescod - Not encumbered by corporate consensus
It's difficult to extract sense from strings, but they're the only
communication coin we can count on. 
	- http://www.cs.yale.edu/~perlis-alan/quotes.html