Home > Dive Into Python > Getting To Know Python > Everything is an object | << >> | ||||
diveintopython.org Python for experienced programmers |
In case you missed it, I just said that Python functions have attributes, and that those attributes are available at runtime.
A function, like everything else in Python, is an object.
Example 1.5. Accessing the buildConnectionString function's doc string
>>> import odbchelper>>> params = {"server":"mpilgrim", "database":"master", "uid":"sa", "pwd":"secret"} >>> print odbchelper.buildConnectionString(params)
server=mpilgrim;uid=sa;database=master;pwd=secret >>> print odbchelper.buildConnectionString.__doc__
Build a connection string from a dictionary Returns string.
![]() | |
import in Python is like require in Perl. Once you import a Python module, you access its functions with module.function; once you require a Perl module, you access its functions with module::function. |
Everything in Python is an object, and almost everything has attributes and methods.[1] All functions have a built-in attribute __doc__, which returns the doc string defined in the function's source code.
This is so important that I'm going to repeat it in case you missed it the first few times: everything in Python is an object. Strings are objects. Lists are objects. Functions are objects. Even modules are objects, as we'll see shortly.
Further reading
Footnotes
[1] Different programming languages define “object” in different ways. In some, it means that all objects must have attributes and methods; in others, it means that all objects are subclassable. In Python, the definition is looser; some objects have neither attributes nor methods (more on this later in this chapter), and not all objects are subclassable (more on this in chapter 3). But everything is an object in the sense that it can be assigned to a variable or passed as an argument to a function (more in this in chapter 2).
Documenting functions | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 | Indenting code |