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<h1>Python Enhancement Proposals</h1>
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<li><a href="https://www.python.org/" title="The Python Programming Language">Python</a> » </li>
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<li><a href="../pep-0000/">PEP Index</a> » </li>
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<li>PEP 233</li>
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<h1 class="page-title">PEP 233 – Python Online Help</h1>
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<dl class="rfc2822 field-list simple">
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<dt class="field-odd">Author<span class="colon">:</span></dt>
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<dd class="field-odd">Paul Prescod <paul at prescod.net></dd>
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<dt class="field-even">Status<span class="colon">:</span></dt>
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<dd class="field-even"><abbr title="Inactive draft that may be taken up again at a later time">Deferred</abbr></dd>
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<dt class="field-odd">Type<span class="colon">:</span></dt>
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<dd class="field-odd"><abbr title="Normative PEP with a new feature for Python, implementation change for CPython or interoperability standard for the ecosystem">Standards Track</abbr></dd>
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<dt class="field-even">Created<span class="colon">:</span></dt>
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<dd class="field-even">11-Dec-2000</dd>
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<dt class="field-odd">Python-Version<span class="colon">:</span></dt>
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<dd class="field-odd">2.1</dd>
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<dt class="field-even">Post-History<span class="colon">:</span></dt>
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<dd class="field-even"><p></p></dd>
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</dl>
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<section id="contents">
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<details><summary>Table of Contents</summary><ul class="simple">
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#abstract">Abstract</a></li>
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#interactive-use">Interactive use</a></li>
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#implementation">Implementation</a></li>
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#built-in-topics">Built-in Topics</a></li>
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#security-issues">Security Issues</a></li>
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</ul>
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</details></section>
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<section id="abstract">
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<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#abstract" role="doc-backlink">Abstract</a></h2>
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<p>This PEP describes a command-line driven online help facility for
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Python. The facility should be able to build on existing
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documentation facilities such as the Python documentation and
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docstrings. It should also be extensible for new types and
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modules.</p>
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</section>
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<section id="interactive-use">
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<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#interactive-use" role="doc-backlink">Interactive use</a></h2>
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<p>Simply typing <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help</span></code> describes the help function (through <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">repr()</span></code>
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overloading).</p>
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<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help</span></code> can also be used as a function.</p>
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<p>The function takes the following forms of input:</p>
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<ul class="simple">
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<li><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help(</span> <span class="pre">"string"</span> <span class="pre">)</span></code> – built-in topic or global</li>
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<li><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help(</span> <span class="pre"><ob></span> <span class="pre">)</span></code> – docstring from object or type</li>
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<li><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help(</span> <span class="pre">"doc:filename"</span> <span class="pre">)</span></code> – filename from Python documentation</li>
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</ul>
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<p>If you ask for a global, it can be a fully-qualified name, such as:</p>
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<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">help</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"xml.dom"</span><span class="p">)</span>
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</pre></div>
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</div>
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<p>You can also use the facility from a command-line:</p>
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<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">python</span> <span class="o">--</span><span class="n">help</span> <span class="k">if</span>
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</pre></div>
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</div>
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<p>In either situation, the output does paging similar to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">more</span></code>
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command.</p>
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</section>
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<section id="implementation">
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<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#implementation" role="doc-backlink">Implementation</a></h2>
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<p>The help function is implemented in an <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">onlinehelp</span></code> module which is
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demand-loaded.</p>
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<p>There should be options for fetching help information from
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environments other than the command line through the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">onlinehelp</span></code>
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module:</p>
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<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">onlinehelp</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">gethelp</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">object_or_string</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">-></span> <span class="n">string</span>
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</pre></div>
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</div>
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<p>It should also be possible to override the help display function
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by assigning to <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">onlinehelp.displayhelp(object_or_string)</span></code>.</p>
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<p>The module should be able to extract module information from
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either the HTML or LaTeX versions of the Python documentation.
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Links should be accommodated in a “lynx-like” manner.</p>
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<p>Over time, it should also be able to recognize when docstrings are
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in “special” syntaxes like structured text, HTML and LaTeX and
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decode them appropriately.</p>
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<p>A prototype implementation is available with the Python source
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distribution as <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">nondist/sandbox/doctools/onlinehelp.py</span></code>.</p>
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</section>
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<section id="built-in-topics">
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<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#built-in-topics" role="doc-backlink">Built-in Topics</a></h2>
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<ul class="simple">
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<li><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help(</span> <span class="pre">"intro"</span> <span class="pre">)</span></code> – What is Python? Read this first!</li>
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<li><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help(</span> <span class="pre">"keywords"</span> <span class="pre">)</span></code> – What are the keywords?</li>
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<li><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help(</span> <span class="pre">"syntax"</span> <span class="pre">)</span></code> – What is the overall syntax?</li>
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<li><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help(</span> <span class="pre">"operators"</span> <span class="pre">)</span></code> – What operators are available?</li>
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<li><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help(</span> <span class="pre">"builtins"</span> <span class="pre">)</span></code> – What functions, types, etc. are built-in?</li>
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<li><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help(</span> <span class="pre">"modules"</span> <span class="pre">)</span></code> – What modules are in the standard library?</li>
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<li><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help(</span> <span class="pre">"copyright"</span> <span class="pre">)</span></code> – Who owns Python?</li>
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<li><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help(</span> <span class="pre">"moreinfo"</span> <span class="pre">)</span></code> – Where is there more information?</li>
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<li><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help(</span> <span class="pre">"changes"</span> <span class="pre">)</span></code> – What changed in Python 2.0?</li>
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<li><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help(</span> <span class="pre">"extensions"</span> <span class="pre">)</span></code> – What extensions are installed?</li>
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<li><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help(</span> <span class="pre">"faq"</span> <span class="pre">)</span></code> – What questions are frequently asked?</li>
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<li><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">help(</span> <span class="pre">"ack"</span> <span class="pre">)</span></code> – Who has done work on Python lately?</li>
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</ul>
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</section>
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<section id="security-issues">
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<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#security-issues" role="doc-backlink">Security Issues</a></h2>
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<p>This module will attempt to import modules with the same names as
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requested topics. Don’t use the modules if you are not confident
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that everything in your <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">PYTHONPATH</span></code> is from a trusted source.</p>
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</section>
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</section>
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<hr class="docutils" />
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<p>Source: <a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/python/peps/blob/main/peps/pep-0233.rst">https://github.com/python/peps/blob/main/peps/pep-0233.rst</a></p>
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<p>Last modified: <a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/python/peps/commits/main/peps/pep-0233.rst">2023-09-09 17:39:29 GMT</a></p>
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</article>
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<nav id="pep-sidebar">
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<h2>Contents</h2>
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<ul>
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#abstract">Abstract</a></li>
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#interactive-use">Interactive use</a></li>
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#implementation">Implementation</a></li>
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#built-in-topics">Built-in Topics</a></li>
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#security-issues">Security Issues</a></li>
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</ul>
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<br>
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<a id="source" href="https://github.com/python/peps/blob/main/peps/pep-0233.rst">Page Source (GitHub)</a>
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