if foo:
if bar:
x = 42
else:
print foo
is analyzed as:
<if> <foo> <:> [0]
<INDENT> <if> <bar> <:> [0, 4]
<INDENT> <x> <=> <42> [0, 4, 8]
<DEDENT> <DEDENT> <else> <:> [0]
<INDENT> <print> <foo> [0, 2]
<DEDENT>
The parser than handles the "INDENT" and "DEDENT" tokens as block delimiters.
Section 3.3: Indentation Errors
The spacing should be even and uniform throughout. Improper indentation can cause an
IndentationError or
cause the program to do something unexpected. The following example raises an IndentationError:
a=7
if a > 5:
print "foo"
else:
print "bar"
print "done"
Or if the line following a colon is not indented, an IndentationError will also be raised:
if True:
print "true"
If you add indentation where it doesn't belong, an IndentationError will be raised:
if True:
a=6
b=5
If you forget to un-indent functionality could be lost. In this example None is returned instead of the
expected False:
def isEven(a):
if a%2 ==0:
return True
#this next line should be even with the if
return False
print isEven(7)
GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 37
Chapter 4: Comments and Documentation
Section 4.1: Single line, inline and multiline comments
Comments are used to explain code when the basic code itself isn't clear.
Python ignores comments, and so will not execute code in there, or raise syntax errors for plain
English sentences.
Single-line comments begin with the hash character (#) and are terminated by the end of line.
Single line comment:
# This is a single line comment in Python
Inline comment:
print("Hello World") # This line prints "Hello World"
Comments spanning multiple lines have """ or ''' on either end. This is the same as a multiline string,
but
they can be used as comments:
"""
This type of comment spans multiple lines.
These are mostly used for documentation of functions, classes and modules.
"""
Section 4.2: Programmatically accessing docstrings
Docstrings are - unlike regular comments - stored as an attribute of the function they document,
meaning that you
can access them programmatically.
An example function
def func():
"""This is a function that does nothing at all"""
return
The docstring can be accessed using the __doc__ attribute:
print(func.__doc__)
This is a function that does nothing at all
help(func)
Help on function func in module __main__:
func()
This is a function that does nothing at all
Another example function
GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 38
function.__doc__ is just the actual docstring as a string, while the help function provides general
information
about a function, including the docstring. Here's a more helpful example:
def greet(name, greeting="Hello"):
"""Print a greeting to the user `name`
Optional parameter `greeting` can change what they're greeted with."""
print("{} {}".format(greeting, name))
help(greet)
Help on function greet in module __main__:
greet(name, greeting='Hello')
Print a greeting to the user name
Optional parameter greeting can change what they're greeted with.
Advantages of docstrings over regular comments
Just putting no docstring or a regular comment in a function makes it a lot less helpful.
def greet(name, greeting="Hello"):
# Print a greeting to the user `name`
# Optional parameter `greeting` can change what they're greeted with.
print("{} {}".format(greeting, name))
print(greet.__doc__)
None
help(greet)
Help on function greet in module main:
greet(name, greeting='Hello')
Section 4.3: Write documentation using docstrings
A docstring is a multi-line comment used to document modules, classes, functions and methods. It
has to be the
first statement of the component it describes.
def hello(name):
"""Greet someone.
Print a greeting ("Hello") for the person with the given name.
"""
print("Hello "+name)
class Greeter:
"""An object used to greet people.
GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 39
It contains multiple greeting functions for several languages
and times of the day.
"""
The value of the docstring can be accessed within the program and is - for example - used by the help
command.
Syntax conventions
PEP 257
PEP 257 defines a syntax standard for docstring comments. It basically allows two types:
One-line Docstrings:
According to PEP 257, they should be used with short and simple functions. Everything is placed in
one line, e.g:
def hello():
"""Say hello to your friends."""
print("Hello my friends!")
The docstring shall end with a period, the verb should be in the imperative form.
Multi-line Docstrings:
Multi-line docstring should be used for longer, more complex functions, modules or classes.
def hello(name, language="en"):
"""Say hello to a person.
Arguments:
name: the name of the person
language: the language in which the person should be greeted
"""
print(greeting[language]+" "+name)
They start with a short summary (equivalent to the content of a one-line docstring) which can be on
the same line
as the quotation marks or on the next line, give additional detail and list parameters and return
values.
Note PEP 257 defines what information should be given within a docstring, it doesn't define in which
format it
should be given. This was the reason for other parties and documentation parsing tools to specify
their own
standards for documentation, some of which are listed below and in this question.
Sphinx
Sphinx is a tool to generate HTML based documentation for Python projects based on docstrings. Its
markup
language used is reStructuredText. They define their own standards for documentation,
pythonhosted.org hosts a
very good description of them. The Sphinx format is for example used by the pyCharm IDE.
A function would be documented like this using the Sphinx/reStructuredText format:
def hello(name, language="en"):
"""Say hello to a person.
:param name: the name of the person
:type name: str
:param language: the language in which the person should be greeted
:type language: str
GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 40
:return: a number
:rtype: int
"""
print(greeting[language]+" "+name)
return 4
Google Python Style Guide
Google has published Google Python Style Guide which defines coding conventions for Python,
including
documentation comments. In comparison to the Sphinx/reST many people say that documentation
according to
Google's guidelines is better human-readable.
The pythonhosted.org page mentioned above also provides some examples for good documentation
according to
the Google Style Guide.
Using the Napoleon plugin, Sphinx can also parse documentation in the Google Style Guide-
compliant format.
A function would be documented like this using the Google Style Guide format:
def hello(name, language="en"):
"""Say hello to a person.
Args:
name: the name of the person as string
language: the language code string
Returns:
A number.
"""
print(greeting
