newbie: Standard Module documentation

[Martin von Loewis]

chorg <chorg at operamail.com> writes:

> 	I am  wondering if there is a standard place to find documetation of
> modules -- kind of like Perl's perldoc.  Or, how can I find out what
> methods and properties are in an instance of a class?

With Python 2.1, you can use pydoc. For example, 'pydoc httplib.HTTP'
gives something that starts

Python Library Documentation: class HTTP in httplib

class HTTP
 |  Compatibility class with httplib.py from 1.5.
 |  
 |  __init__(self, host='', port=None, **x509)
 |      Provide a default host, since the superclass requires one.
 |  
 |  close(self)
 |  
 |  connect(self, host=None, port=None)
 |      Accept arguments to set the host/port, since the superclass doesn't.
 |  

Of course, for a full reference, you should read the Python library
reference,

http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/lib.html

Regards,
Martin