On Mon, Oct 29, 2007 at 06:45:22PM +0000, Duncan Booth wrote regarding Re:
Built-in functions and keyword arguments:
>
> "J. Clifford Dyer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >> I think you are being a little bit unfair here: help(len) says:
> >>
> >> len(...)
> >> len(object) -> integer
> >>
> >> Return the number of items of a sequence or mapping.
> >>
> >> which implies that the argument to len has the name 'object'
> >> (although in fact it doesn't have a name). The OP was simply asking
> >> about the difference in calling conventions, not proposing to write
> >> code using 'object' as the argument name.
> >
> > Hmm.... To my mind, that just implies that the *type* of the expected
> > input is an object. Just like the "-> integer" tells you that the
> > type of the output is an integer. If the documentation read
> > "len(s=object) -> integer", then I would expect a keyword argument s
> > typed as an object.
> >
>
> How do you interpret:
>
> >>> help(__import__)
> Help on built-in function __import__ in module __builtin__:
>
> __import__(...)
> __import__(name, globals={}, locals={}, fromlist=[], level=-1) ->
> module
> ...
> >>> help(int)
> Help on class int in module __builtin__:
>
> class int(object)
> | int(x[, base]) -> integer
> ...
>
> Can you find any case (other than a single parameter identified as
> 'object') where you can interpret the help string as telling you the types
> of the parameters?
OK, good point. Perhaps it's not so specific as the type, but certainly the
use of name and x in the docstrings listed above only imply something about the
character of the argument, not the name of the argument itself, which is what I
was trying to get at. Help documentation for keyword arguments usually shows
the argument being used as a keyword, like the example from __import__ above.
Thanks for the correction.
Cheers,
Cliff
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