On Jan 12, 2007, at 8:56 AM, Bjoern Schliessmann wrote: > lee wrote: > >> whats the way to read the sourcecode of methods > > Easy. Look up the .py file and open it in an editor of your choice. > Those files are, for example, in "/usr/lib/python". > >> and built in functions?
This becomes a lot easier if you use IPython (which embellishes the python shell in many useful ways). For instance, I did a "dir (__builtins__)" to find out what some of the builtin functions were. One was called "zip". Here's what I do in IPython to get help on that function: In [2]: zip?? Type: builtin_function_or_method Base Class: <type 'builtin_function_or_method'> String Form: <built-in function zip> Namespace: Python builtin Docstring [source file open failed]: zip(seq1 [, seq2 [...]]) -> [(seq1[0], seq2[0] ...), (...)] Return a list of tuples, where each tuple contains the i-th element from each of the argument sequences. The returned list is truncated in length to the length of the shortest argument sequence. Note that IPython's prompt is (by default) different than pythons--- the "In[<some number>]:". Any identifier you have a question about will produce summary info via "<identifier>?" and summary + source via "<identifier>??". HTH --b -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list