if foo:

if bar:

x = 42

else:

print foo

is analyzed as:

<if> <foo> <:> [0]

<INDENT> <if> <bar> <:> [0, 4]

<INDENT> <x> <=> <42> [0, 4, 8]

<DEDENT> <DEDENT> <else> <:> [0]

<INDENT> <print> <foo> [0, 2]

<DEDENT>

The parser than handles the "INDENT" and "DEDENT" tokens as block delimiters.

Section 3.3: Indentation Errors

The spacing should be even and uniform throughout. Improper indentation can cause an
IndentationError or

cause the program to do something unexpected. The following example raises an IndentationError:

a=7

if a > 5:

print "foo"

else:

print "bar"

print "done"

Or if the line following a colon is not indented, an IndentationError will also be raised:

if True:

print "true"

If you add indentation where it doesn't belong, an IndentationError will be raised:

if True:

a=6

b=5

If you forget to un-indent functionality could be lost. In this example None is returned instead of the
expected False:
def isEven(a):

if a%2 ==0:

return True

#this next line should be even with the if

return False

print isEven(7)

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 37

Chapter 4: Comments and Documentation

Section 4.1: Single line, inline and multiline comments

Comments are used to explain code when the basic code itself isn't clear.

Python ignores comments, and so will not execute code in there, or raise syntax errors for plain
English sentences.

Single-line comments begin with the hash character (#) and are terminated by the end of line.

Single line comment:

# This is a single line comment in Python

Inline comment:

print("Hello World") # This line prints "Hello World"

Comments spanning multiple lines have """ or ''' on either end. This is the same as a multiline string,
but

they can be used as comments:

"""

This type of comment spans multiple lines.

These are mostly used for documentation of functions, classes and modules.

"""

Section 4.2: Programmatically accessing docstrings

Docstrings are - unlike regular comments - stored as an attribute of the function they document,
meaning that you

can access them programmatically.

An example function

def func():

"""This is a function that does nothing at all"""

return
The docstring can be accessed using the __doc__ attribute:

print(func.__doc__)

This is a function that does nothing at all

help(func)

Help on function func in module __main__:

func()

This is a function that does nothing at all

Another example function

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 38

function.__doc__ is just the actual docstring as a string, while the help function provides general
information

about a function, including the docstring. Here's a more helpful example:

def greet(name, greeting="Hello"):

"""Print a greeting to the user `name`

Optional parameter `greeting` can change what they're greeted with."""

print("{} {}".format(greeting, name))

help(greet)

Help on function greet in module __main__:

greet(name, greeting='Hello')

Print a greeting to the user name

Optional parameter greeting can change what they're greeted with.

Advantages of docstrings over regular comments

Just putting no docstring or a regular comment in a function makes it a lot less helpful.

def greet(name, greeting="Hello"):

# Print a greeting to the user `name`

# Optional parameter `greeting` can change what they're greeted with.

print("{} {}".format(greeting, name))

print(greet.__doc__)

None

help(greet)

Help on function greet in module main:

Section 4.3: Write documentation using docstrings

A docstring is a multi-line comment used to document modules, classes, functions and methods. It
has to be the

first statement of the component it describes.

def hello(name):

"""Greet someone.

Print a greeting ("Hello") for the person with the given name.

"""

print("Hello "+name)

class Greeter:

"""An object used to greet people.

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 39

It contains multiple greeting functions for several languages

and times of the day.

"""

The value of the docstring can be accessed within the program and is - for example - used by the help
command.

Syntax conventions

PEP 257

PEP 257 defines a syntax standard for docstring comments. It basically allows two types:

One-line Docstrings:

According to PEP 257, they should be used with short and simple functions. Everything is placed in
one line, e.g:

def hello():

"""Say hello to your friends."""

print("Hello my friends!")

The docstring shall end with a period, the verb should be in the imperative form.

Multi-line Docstrings:

Multi-line docstring should be used for longer, more complex functions, modules or classes.

def hello(name, language="en"):

"""Say hello to a person.

name: the name of the person

language: the language in which the person should be greeted

"""

print(greeting[language]+" "+name)

They start with a short summary (equivalent to the content of a one-line docstring) which can be on
the same line

as the quotation marks or on the next line, give additional detail and list parameters and return
values.

Note PEP 257 defines what information should be given within a docstring, it doesn't define in which
format it

should be given. This was the reason for other parties and documentation parsing tools to specify
their own

standards for documentation, some of which are listed below and in this question.

Sphinx

Sphinx is a tool to generate HTML based documentation for Python projects based on docstrings. Its
markup

language used is reStructuredText. They define their own standards for documentation,
pythonhosted.org hosts a

very good description of them. The Sphinx format is for example used by the pyCharm IDE.

A function would be documented like this using the Sphinx/reStructuredText format:

def hello(name, language="en"):

"""Say hello to a person.

:param name: the name of the person

:type name: str

:param language: the language in which the person should be greeted

:type language: str

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 40

:return: a number

:rtype: int

"""

print(greeting[language]+" "+name)

return 4
Google Python Style Guide

Google has published Google Python Style Guide which defines coding conventions for Python,
including

documentation comments. In comparison to the Sphinx/reST many people say that documentation
according to

Google's guidelines is better human-readable.

The pythonhosted.org page mentioned above also provides some examples for good documentation
according to

the Google Style Guide.

Using the Napoleon plugin, Sphinx can also parse documentation in the Google Style Guide-
compliant format.

A function would be documented like this using the Google Style Guide format:

def hello(name, language="en"):

"""Say hello to a person.

Args:

name: the name of the person as string

language: the language code string

Returns:

A number.

"""

print(greeting