Python Docstrings: Improve Code Documentation and Enhance Readability

Docstrings play a crucial role in documenting code, serving as a means of communication not only to other developers but also to yourself. When revisiting your code months or years later, it may be challenging to recall every detail. Therefore, clear and concise documentation becomes invaluable.

While comments are commonly used for explanatory text, docstrings offer more structured and automated processing. Here’s how you can utilize docstrings in your code:

Function Docstrings

To define a docstring for a function, follow this format:

def increment(n):
    """Increment a number"""
    return n + 1

Class and Method Docstrings

For classes and their methods, use the following format:

class Dog:
    """A class representing a dog"""
    def __init__(self, name, age):
        """Initialize a new dog"""
        self.name = name
        self.age = age

    def bark(self):
        """Let the dog bark"""
        print('WOOF!')

Module Docstrings

To document an entire module, place a docstring at the top of the file. For example:

"""Dog module

This module provides the Dog class and various functionalities related to dogs.
"""

Multiline Docstrings

Docstrings can span multiple lines for more extensive explanations. For instance:

def increment(n):
    """Increment
    a number
    """
    return n + 1

To access the docstring of a particular class, method, function, or module, you can use the help() function. For instance, calling help(increment) will display the following:

Help on function increment in module __main__:

increment(n)
    Increment
    a number

Different standards exist for formatting docstrings, and you can choose the one that suits your preferences. A popular choice is the Google style guide, which provides guidelines for documenting Python code. Adhering to a particular standard enables the use of tools that automatically extract docstrings to generate comprehensive documentation for your code.

Overall, leveraging docstrings helps create well-documented code, enhancing its readability and maintainability.