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Mastering Python

You're reading from   Mastering Python Master the art of writing beautiful and powerful Python by using all of the features that Python 3.5 offers

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Product type Paperback
Published in Apr 2016
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781785289729
Length 486 pages
Edition 1st Edition
Languages
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Author (1):
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Rick Hattem Rick Hattem
Author Profile Icon Rick Hattem
Rick Hattem
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Table of Contents (17) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Getting Started – One Environment per Project FREE CHAPTER 2. Pythonic Syntax, Common Pitfalls, and Style Guide 3. Containers and Collections – Storing Data the Right Way 4. Functional Programming – Readability Versus Brevity 5. Decorators – Enabling Code Reuse by Decorating 6. Generators and Coroutines – Infinity, One Step at a Time 7. Async IO – Multithreading without Threads 8. Metaclasses – Making Classes (Not Instances) Smarter 9. Documentation – How to Use Sphinx and reStructuredText 10. Testing and Logging – Preparing for Bugs 11. Debugging – Solving the Bugs 12. Performance – Tracking and Reducing Your Memory and CPU Usage 13. Multiprocessing – When a Single CPU Core Is Not Enough 14. Extensions in C/C++, System Calls, and C/C++ Libraries 15. Packaging – Creating Your Own Libraries or Applications Index

Documenting code

There are currently three different documentation styles supported by Sphinx: the original Sphinx style and the more recent NumPy and Google styles. The differences between them are mainly in style but it's actually slightly more than that.

The Sphinx style was developed using a bunch of reStructuredText roles, a very effective method but when used a lot it can be detrimental for readability. You can probably tell what the following does but it's not the nicest syntax:

:param amount: The amount of eggs to return
:type amount: int

The Google style was (as the name suggests) developed by Google. The goal was to have a simple/readable format which works both as in-code documentation and parse able for Sphinx. In my opinion, this comes closer to the original idea of reStructuredText, a format that's very close to how you would document instinctively. This example has the same meaning as the Sphinx style example shown earlier:

Args:
    amount (int): The amount of...
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