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

[Terry Reedy]

On 2/7/2011 3:21 PM, Ron Adam wrote:

> 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.

?? On windows, both the command prompt and IDLE shell windows keep the 
help text. I scroll up and down all the time. Multi-screen text would be 
pretty useless otherwise. I consider any other behavior buggy.

Indeed, interposing the pager is a nuisance as it requires multiple 
returns before one can get the full text for scrolling. By whatever 
means, IDLE does not visibly page but gives the whole text at once. None 
is still the return object.

help(ob) returning a string is a different issue. Since the text is 
ofter more than ob.__doc__ (see help(int) versus int.__doc__, for 
instance), returning the composed text would at minimum make it easier 
to test help, or to check the composed result for a particular module or 
class. One might even use the result as a quick ref manual, or a first 
draft for one.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy