How to autodoc a function inside a method in Sphinx

Question

Code example:

class A(object):
    def do_something(self):
        \"\"\" doc_a \"\"\"
        def inside_function():
            \"\"\" doc_b \"\"\"
                    


        

Answer 1

A function within a function is at the local variable scope. The local variables of a function are not accessible from outside of the function:

>>> def x():
...    def y():
...       pass
... 
>>> x
<function x at 0x7f68560295f0>
>>> x.y
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'function' object has no attribute 'y'

If Sphinx can't get a reference to the function, it can't document it.

A workaround that might work is to assign the function to a variable of the function, like this:

>>> def x():
...    def _y():
...       pass
...    x.y = _y
... 

It won't be accessible at first:

>>> x.y
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'function' object has no attribute 'y'

But after the first invocation of the function, it will be:

>>> x()
>>> x.y
<function _y at 0x1a720c8>

This might work if the function gets executed when Sphinx imports the module.