Docstring for variable

Question

Is it posible to use docstring for plain variable? For example I have module called t

def f():
    \"\"\"f\"\"\"

l = lambda x: x
\"\"\"l\"\"\"
         


        

Answer 1

Well, even though Python does not treat strings defined immediately after a global definition as a docstring for the variable, sphinx does and it is certainly not a bad practice to include them.

debug = False
'''Set to True to turn on debugging mode. This enables opening IPython on 
exceptions.
'''

Here is some code that will scan a module and pull out names of global variable definitions, the value and a docstring that follows.

def GetVarDocs(fname):
    '''Read the module referenced in fname (often .__file__) and return a
    dict with global variables, their value and the "docstring" that follows
    the definition of the variable
    '''
    import ast,os
    fname = os.path.splitext(fname)[0]+'.py' # convert .pyc to .py
    with open(fname, 'r') as f:
        fstr = f.read()
    d = {}
    key = None
    for node in ast.walk(ast.parse(fstr)):
        if isinstance(node,ast.Assign):
            key = node.targets[0].id
            d[key] = [node.value.id,'']
            continue
        elif isinstance(node,ast.Expr) and key:
            d[key][1] = node.value.s.strip()
        key = None
    return d