[Python-ideas] Cleaner separation of help() and interactive help.

[Ron Adam]

Currently any call to help() uses the pager in pydoc.  Because of that, you 
can't do some things (easily) like...

 >>> result = help(thing)

It also can be annoying (to me) when I use help and the result is cleared 
after the pager is done with it.  That requires me to re-do the same help 
requests to recheck details rather than simply scroll back in the current 
console window.

The alternative is to keep another console open just for using help. 
That's not always good when you already have multiple windows open for 
doing other things.


In python 3.3, I would like to have help() return the results as a string, 
and only use the pager if you are actually in interactive-help mode.

 >>> help(thing)   # return a help string of a thing.

 >>> help()        # enter interactive help mode where the pager is used.

Separating these even more might be good, ...  help() and ihelp().  In this 
case, the current help() function could just be renamed to ihelp(), and a 
new help() function would return a result as a string.  The default might 
be help(thing='help').  The help on 'help' would refer to 'ihelp' for the 
interactive help.


Sometime later, I want to look into moving the pager in pydoc to the cmd 
module as cmd.pager().  (I think it fits well there.)

And related to that... I am going to look into re-implementing pydocs 
interactive help with the cmd module. I think it will remove some 
duplication, and both modules will benefit.

Cheers,
   Ron