Docstrings for data?

Question

Is there a way to describe the module's data in a similar way that a docstring describes a module or a funcion?

class MyClass(object):     def my_function():         """This docstring works!"""         return True     my_list = []     """This docstring does not work!""" 

Answer 1

To my knowledge, it is not possible to assign docstrings to module data members.

PEP 224 suggests this feature, but the PEP was rejected.

I suggest you document the data members of a module in the module's docstring:

# module.py: """About the module.  module.data: contains the word "spam"  """  data = "spam" 

Answer 2

It is possible to make documentation of module's data, with use of epydoc syntax. Epydoc is one of the most frequently used documentation tools for Python.

The syntax for documenting is #: above the variable initialization line, like this:

# module.py:  #: Very important data. #: Use with caution. #: @type: C{str} data = "important data" 

Now when you generate your documentation, data will be described as module variable with given description and type str. You can omit the @type line.