[New-bugs-announce] [issue16568] allow constructors to be documented separately from class

[Chris Jerdonek]

New submission from Chris Jerdonek:

This issue is to settle on and provide a way to document the constructor of a class separately from the overall summary/description of a class.

This is something that Ezio, Nick, and I discussed briefly on IRC a few hours ago.  We all see the value in it.

Currently, Sphinx's "class" directive is used in many places to document the constructor of a class.  One drawback of this approach is that linking to the class using the :class: role links to the constructor as opposed to the class summary.  As a result, in many cases the class description needs to be added before the class directive, and a second link needs to be created and used for the overall description.

One way to address this would be to create a new "constructor" directive similar to directives like method, classmethod, and staticmethod.  The constructor documentation could then be hyperlinked to using a new :constructor: role (or perhaps :ctor: to go with the pattern of 4-letter roles).  The class summary could then go immediately after the class directive, with the constructor directive following, as follows:

.. class:: Foo

   Description of Foo.

   .. constructor:: Foo(bar=1)
   
      Return a Foo.

This could render as--

class **Foo**

   Description of Foo.
   
   *constructor* **Foo**(bar=1)

      Return a Foo.

It is possible that something similar could be achieved by abusing the method directive for constructors and linking to them using :meth:`~Foo.Foo`, but that wouldn't be ideal in a few respects.

Nick also raised a related issue for base classes, etc.  I will let him speak to that issue, which might be best as part of another new issue.

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assignee: docs at python
components: Documentation
messages: 176524
nosy: chris.jerdonek, docs at python, ezio.melotti, ncoghlan
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: allow constructors to be documented separately from class
type: enhancement

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue16568>
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