Docstrings | What Are The Most Common Python Docstring Formats?

In this post, we will learn more about the most common Python docstrings formats which it is used for documenting the functions, classes, and modules in python, Which are defined in triple quotes which say string enclose and provide critical information about how to see the code.

Docstrings

Docstring

As there are a number of formats that we can use for the same purpose and they are commonly used during writing Python,  we have listed most of them to understand with an example to understand the concept and implement at the same time.

Google style docstrings

Generaly people referees to use this formate as This style is based on the Google Python Style Guide and is very popular in the Python community. It uses a specific set of sections to organize the information in the docs, including a one-line summary, a more detailed description, arguments, return values, exceptions raised, and more.

Numpydoc style docstring

This style is based on the Numpy documentation which is a convention and is commonly used in scientific Python libraries. It also uses a specific set of sections, including a brief summary, detailed description, arguments, returns, and examples.

reStructuredText (reST) style docstring

This style is based on the reStructuredText markup language and is used for many Python libraries and projects. It allows for more advanced formatting and includes sections for describing arguments, return values, and exceptions.

Epytext style docstring

This style is similar to reStructuredText but uses a simpler markup syntax. It includes sections for describing the function, parameters, return value, and exceptions. Which has the least line of code to execute during implementation.

Sphinx style docstring

Last but not least we have it where the style is based on the Sphinx documentation generator and is used for many Python projects. It uses a simple, flexible markup language and includes sections for describing the function, parameters, return value, and exceptions.

As we have seen these are just a few of the most common Python docstring formats, and there are many others that may be used in different contexts or for different projects. which did not discuss here. But for the same or a google style docstring format for the python function is given below where we can understand how we can implement it.

def greet( name):
    """
    Greets a person by their name.

    Args:
        name (str): The name of the person to greet.

    Returns:
        str: A greeting message including the person's name.
    """
    return f"Hello, {name}!"

 

 

 

To learn more about What are the most common Python docstring formats visit:  by stack overflow

To learn more about python solutions to different python problems and tutorials for the concepts we need to know to work on python programming along with different ways to solve any generally asked problems: How To Pass-Variables From A Java & Python Client To A Linux/Ubuntu Server Which Is Running C?.

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