[Tutor] List of available modules

[Danny Yoo]

On Sat, 10 Apr 2004, John M. Purser wrote:

> Just so I can measure the duration of my ignorance: How long has Python
> had help()?


Hi John


Ka-Ping Yee wrote the 'pydoc' module module quite a while back, and that
module was incorporated into the Standard Library around Python 2.1:

    http://python.org/doc/2.2/lib/module-pydoc.html
    http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2001/04/18/pydoc.html

pydoc.help() was accessible around then, but it was a little awkward to
type 'from pydoc import help' every time one wanted to use it.  We had a
discussion on getting help() as a builtin on the edu-sig list,

    http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2001-June/001376.html
    http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2001-June/001401.html


As a result of that fruitful discussion, Guido checked in a patch to make
help() a builtin.

http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/python/python/dist/src/Lib/site.py?r1=1.26&r2=1.27


So, in short: we've had help() since about 2001.  *grin*


Hope this helps!