A.M. Kuchling schrieb: > To show a series of optional parameters, currently we nest square > brackets. > > http://docs.python.org/dev/library/warnings.html#warnings.filterwarnings > > warnings.filterwarnings(action[, message[, category[, module[, > lineno[, append]]]]]) > > My proposal is that we drop the nesting and write this as: > > warnings.filterwarnings(action [, message, category, module, lineno, append]) > > Currently the stylesheets make the brackets very big and dark, so I've > also added a space before the bracket. > > This change means we'd lose the ability to show when two optional > arguments must be supplied at the same time, which could currently be > written like this: > > warnings.filterwarnings(action[, message, category[, module]])
> What does everyone think? My proposal: Since we already give a Python-like signature, why not give the full signature for Python functions? That is, simply show default values for arguments like warnings.filterwarnings(action, message="", category=Warning, module="", lineno=0, append=0) That way, we also can get rid of awkward tons of parenthetical remarks like in "If foo is None (which is the default)", and also get to add that information in the first place where it was missing before. The argument defaults can be shown in a different typographical style if desired. Parameters whose default isn't easily displayable can continue to use the brackets. For C module functions that don't support keyword arguments, the old way of nested brackets precisely represents how to call the function, so it should stay. Sadly, this proposal is also the most work-intensive one since no automatic conversion is possible. This being the docs, it is however possible to tackle this over time on a per-module basis, so this is not necessarily a killer argument. Georg -- Thus spake the Lord: Thou shalt indent with four spaces. No more, no less. Four shall be the number of spaces thou shalt indent, and the number of thy indenting shall be four. Eight shalt thou not indent, nor either indent thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to four. Tabs are right out. _______________________________________________ Doc-SIG maillist - Doc-SIG@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/doc-sig
