how to inherit docstrings?

[Eric Snow]

On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 12:37 AM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> Eric Snow <ericsnowcurrently at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> p.s. Am I missing something or can you really not change the docstring
>> of a class? I was thinking about the idea of inheriting class
>> docstrings too.
>
> The docstring of an object (whether function or class or module) is the
> object's ‘__doc__’ attribute. Access that attribute to get the
> docstring; re-bind that attribute to set a different docstring.
>

Sorry, I should have been more clear:

>>> class X:
...     "some doc"
...
>>> X.__doc__
'some doc'
>>> X.__doc__ = "another doc"
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: attribute '__doc__' of 'type' objects is not writable

That is on 3.3.

> So, it's even possible to do what you ask without decorators at all:
>
>    class Foo(object):
>        def frob(self):
>            """ Frobnicate thyself. """
>
>    class Bar(Foo):
>        def frob(self):
>            pass
>        frob.__doc__ = Foo.frob.__doc__
>
> Not very elegant, and involving rather too much repetition; but not
> difficult.
>

Yeah, definitely you can do it directly for each case.  However, the
inelegance, repetition, and immodularity are exactly why I am pursuing
a solution.  :)  (I included a link in the original message to
examples of how you can already do it with metaclasses and class
decorators too.)

I'm just looking for a way to do it with decorators in the class body
without using metaclasses or class decorators.

Thanks

-eric

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> Ben Finney
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