[Python-Dev] Sharing docstrings between the Python and C implementations of a module

[Alexandre Vassalotti]

On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 12:56 AM, David Lam <david.k.lam1 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I tried to find an example in the source which addressed this, but
> found that the docstrings in similar cases to be largely duplicated.
>

I find this annoying too. It would be nice to have a common way to share
docstrings between C and Python implementations of the same interface. One
roadblock though is functions in C modules often document their parameters
in their docstring.

     >>> import _json
     >>> help(_json.scanstring)
     scanstring(...)
        scanstring(basestring, end, encoding, strict=True) -> (str, end)

        Scan the string s for a JSON string. End is the index of the
        character in s after the quote that started the JSON string.
        [...]

Argument clinic will hopefully lift this roadblock soon. Perhaps, we could
add something to the clinic DSL a way to fetch the docstring directly from
the Python implementation. And as an extra, it would be easy to add
verification step as well that checks the both implementations provide a
similar interfaces once we have this in place.
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