How to create a docstring for a module?

[Phillip M. Feldman]

Chris Rebert wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 12:34 PM, Dr. Phillip M. Feldman
> <pfeldman at verizon.net> wrote:
>   
>> OK.  I was able to reproduce the problem.  My difficulty was that the command
>> that I issued initially was "from xyz import *" rather than just "import
>> xyz".  If I say "import xyz", then the docstring is defined; if I say "from
>> xyz import *", it isn't.  I'm not sure whether this is a bug or expected
>> behavior.
>>     
>
> Expected behavior. If you `from foo import bar`, the name `foo` won't
> be bound, so needless to say you won't be able to access its docstring
> foo.__doc__.
>
> $ ipython
> Python 2.6.2 (r262:71600, Nov  5 2009, 15:03:16)
> Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>
> IPython 0.10 -- An enhanced Interactive Python.
> ?         -> Introduction and overview of IPython's features.
> %quickref -> Quick reference.
> help      -> Python's own help system.
> object?   -> Details about 'object'. ?object also works, ?? prints more.
>
> In [1]: ?pickle
> Object `pickle` not found.
>
> In [2]: from pickle import *
>
> In [3]: ?pickle
> Object `pickle` not found.
>
> In [4]: pickle.__doc__
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> NameError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
>
> /Users/chris/<ipython console> in <module>()
>
> NameError: name 'pickle' is not defined
>
> In [5]: import pickle
>
> In [6]: ?pickle
>
> <shows the documentation>
>
> In [7]: pickle.__doc__
> Out[7]: 'Create portable serialized representations of Python
> objects.\n\nSee module cPickle for a (much) faster
> implementation.\nSee module copy_reg for a mechanism for registering
> custom picklers.\nSee module pickletools source for extensive
> comments.\n\nClasses:\n\n    Pickler\n    Unpickler\n\nFunctions:\n\n
>   dump(object, file)\n    dumps(object) -> string\n    load(file) ->
> object\n    loads(string) -> object\n\nMisc variables:\n\n
> __version__\n    format_version\n    compatible_formats\n\n'
>
>
> Cheers,
> Chris
> --
> http://blog.rebertia.com
>
>   
Hello Chris-

It does seem as though IPython could be a bit more clever about this.  
If the user asks for documentation on xyz via "?xyz" and xyz is not 
defined, then I'd like to see IPython check for a module named "xyz" and 
if it exists, extract and display the docstring.

Phillip