Documentation is essential for understanding and maintaining code, and Python provides a straightforward way to add documentation to your functions, classes, and modules using docstrings. A docstring is a string literal that occurs as the first statement in a module, function, class, or method. It serves as documentation for that object.
Docstrings provide several benefits:
- Documentation: They explain what a function, class, or module does, what arguments it accepts, and what it returns. This helps you and others understand and use your code correctly.
- Auto-generating documentation: Many documentation tools and systems can extract docstrings to generate documentation in various formats, such as HTML or PDF.
- IDE support: Integrated development environments (IDEs) can display docstring information when you hover over or inspect functions or classes, making it easier to work with your code.
- Clarity: Well-documented code is more accessible and maintainable, especially when collaborating with others or revisiting your own code after some time.
When writing docstrings:
- Use triple double-quotes (""") for docstrings. This allows for multiline descriptions.
- Follow a consistent format, such as the one shown in the example below, which includes a brief description, parameter descriptions (Args), and a return value description (Returns).
- Be concise and clear in your descriptions.
def add(a, b):
"""
This function takes two numbers, 'a' and 'b', and returns their sum.
Args:
a (int): The first number.
b (int): The second number.
Returns:
int: The sum of 'a' and 'b'.
"""
return a + b