[Python-Dev] Doctest and Footnotes

[Benji York]

Alexander Belopolsky wrote:
> Benji York <benji <at> zope.com> writes:
>>Here's the idea: when a footnote is referenced in prose, execute the 
>>code associated with the footnote at that point.  For example:
>>
> 
> Another natural place for the referenced code is the __test__ dictionary.
> Using that has an advantage of not clobbering the display in the default
> pydoc viewer.

I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting.  A guess: put the code that 
isn't to be seen in the __test__ dict with a string key being the name 
of the footnote?  I don't think a ReST processor would like that much. 
It would see references to footnotes that are never defined.  Or perhaps 
you're suggesting a non-ReST mechanism for the references?

Also, for many of the use-cases we have, we do want the code in the 
test, just not in such a prominent place, and not repeated more than once.
-- 
Benji York
Senior Software Engineer
Zope Corporation