[issue13691] pydoc help (or help('help')) claims to run a help utility; does nothing

[jbitcm-]

jbitcm-  added the comment:

I am working on it

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nosy: +jbitcm-

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[issue13691] pydoc help (or help('help')) claims to run a help utility; does nothing

[Éric Araujo]

Éric Araujo  added the comment:

Just a heads-up: I’ll be offline between January 19 and the end of the month, 
so don’t worry if you make a patch and it’s not reviewed immediately (at least 
not by me, other developers may do it :)

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[issue13691] pydoc help (or help('help')) claims to run a help utility; does nothing

[Devin Jeanpierre]

New submission from Devin Jeanpierre :

What follows is a copy-paste of a shell session. Notice that at the end, rather 
than being inside the online help utility, I'm still in the interactive 
interpreter. I was able to duplicate this on python3.2, python2.7, and 
python2.6 (verifying it on other versions would have required installing them). 
Reading the source in trunk, there is nothing that looks like it actually 
should run this interactive help session. It's just missing.

I guess nobody used this, eh? I've attached a patch that should fix it. I'm not 
sure how you want to handle adding a test for this, so please advise me on that.

-

>>> help('help')

Welcome to Python 3.2!  This is the online help utility.

If this is your first time using Python, you should definitely check out
the tutorial on the Internet at http://docs.python.org/tutorial/.

Enter the name of any module, keyword, or topic to get help on writing
Python programs and using Python modules.  To quit this help utility and
return to the interpreter, just type "quit".

To get a list of available modules, keywords, or topics, type "modules",
"keywords", or "topics".  Each module also comes with a one-line summary
of what it does; to list the modules whose summaries contain a given word
such as "spam", type "modules spam".

>>>

--
components: Library (Lib)
files: r74214.diff
keywords: patch
messages: 150427
nosy: Devin Jeanpierre
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: pydoc help (or help('help')) claims to run a help utility; does nothing
versions: Python 2.6, Python 2.7, Python 3.2
Added file: http://bugs.python.org/file24121/r74214.diff

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[issue13691] pydoc help (or help('help')) claims to run a help utility; does nothing

[Éric Araujo]

Éric Araujo  added the comment:

IMO, help('help') should document the help function, not start an interactive 
help session (that’d be help()).

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nosy: +eric.araujo
versions: +Python 3.3 -Python 2.6

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[issue13691] pydoc help (or help('help')) claims to run a help utility; does nothing

[Terry J. Reedy]

Terry J. Reedy  added the comment:

I agree. It should explain the three options:
help(object): help on object or class of object, except
help('name'): help on object/module named 'name'
help(): run utility, which starts with utility help

help(help) prints unhelpful
"Help on _Helper in module site object:

class _Helper(builtins.object)
 |  Define the builtin 'help'.
 |  This is a wrapper around pydoc.help (with a twist).
 |  
 |  Methods defined here:
...
"
which says not at all how to use help().

I have the feeling that there is a related issue on the tracker, but searching 
for 'help', 'help()', or 'help(help)' all return 620 hits.

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nosy: +terry.reedy

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[issue13691] pydoc help (or help('help')) claims to run a help utility; does nothing

[Devin Jeanpierre]

Devin Jeanpierre  added the comment:

> IMO, help('help') should document the help function, not start an interactive 
> help session (that’d be help()).

Ahhh, that explains it. help('help') isn't ever meant to be called; it's 
supposed to be:

>>> help()
...
help> help
...

the call to "help" at the help> prompt is equivalent to help('help').


help('help') should do something different, such as say how to use the help 
function, as you say. Whereas "help> help" makes sense.

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[issue13691] pydoc help (or help('help')) claims to run a help utility; does nothing

[Ezio Melotti]

Changes by Ezio Melotti :


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nosy: +ezio.melotti
stage:  -> needs patch
type:  -> behavior

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[issue13691] pydoc help (or help('help')) claims to run a help utility; does nothing

[Éric Araujo]

Éric Araujo  added the comment:

I’m interested in this, so I’m taking assignment.  If a contributor is 
interested in making a patch I’ll review it, otherwise I’ll say when I start on 
a patch.

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assignee:  -> eric.araujo
keywords: +easy

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