duplicate docstrings

[Brian van den Broek]

Steven Bethard said unto the world upon 2005-02-18 13:58:
> I have two classes that implement the same interface, e.g. something like:
> 
> class C(object):
>     def foo(self):
>         """Foo things"""
>         ...
>     def bar(self):
>         """Bar things"""
>         ...
>     def baz(self):
>         """Baz things in a C manner"""
>         ...
> 
> class D(object):
>     def foo(self):
>         """Foo things"""
>         ...
>     def bar(self):
>         """Bar things"""
>         ...
>     def baz(self):
>         """Baz things in a D manner"""
>         ...
> 
> It bothers me that I'm basically writing the same docstrings multiple 
> times.  I guess what I really want to do is just write the docstrings 
> for the interface I'm describing, and only supply docstrings in the 
> classes when they need to differ from the interface docstrings.
> 
> Is there a good way to do this?  If it's necessary, I can have C and D 
> inherit from another class...
> 
> STeVe

Hi, I'm new to thinking in classes, and may not have understood your 
need. But does this help:

IDLE 1.1
 >>> class Spam:
	'''I'm a very spammy docstring'''
	pass

 >>> class Ham:
	__doc__ = Spam.__doc__

	
 >>> help(Ham)
Help on class Ham in module __main__:

class Ham
  |  I'm a very spammy docstring

 >>>

best,

Brian vdB