Easy to navigate online Python reference manual?

Question

I'm looking for some reference pages for Python similar to PHP.net's documentation. i.e., something that provides a clear, simple list of all the classes and methods within a module that I can click to get more information, such as the arguments. Having descriptions below each class/method makes it harder to find what you're looking for.

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Haven't got the answer I'm looking for, so I'm in the process of creating such an index. Version 1 should be ready in a few hours hopefully. link

Answer 1

>>> import datetime
>>> help(datetime.time)

Answer 2

First few lines of the built-in docs seem fine to me:

from datetime import time
help(time)

Prints:

class time(__builtin__.object)
 |  time([hour[, minute[, second[, microsecond[, tzinfo]]]]]) --> a time object
 |
 |  All arguments are optional. tzinfo may be None, or an instance of
 |  a tzinfo subclass. The remaining arguments may be ints or longs.

Answer 3

Personally, I find these two techniques helpful:

1. Import the module datetime and then doing help(datetime.time). The output is much better and gives mostly what you need.

2. Using effbot's reference. You can check out the datetime one here. I usually Google Effbot <module> for a short description of the module and a working example. Very helpful in times.

More specifically, this is what I am talking about.

Answer 4

The standard online reference manual has a search function that works reasonably well.

The search for datetime linked to above provides a list that includes the contents of the datetime module, methods/properties on the datetime class, several references to datetime from elsewhere in the library, and a bunch of C API references.

Looking in a reference manual presupposes to some extent that you know what you are looking for.

It sounds like maybe you want a list of methods/properties for the class to be displayed in the left-hand nav? If so, it might be worth putting in a request for this to the docs folks to see if it something that could be changed.

Answer 5

You could try

python -m pydoc -p 8000

then go to http://localhost:8000

Probably still not what you're looking for, but it's another option.

Answer 6

Perhaps someone should simply use iframes (or actual frames) to put these together:

http://docs.python.org/library ./reference

Maybe take you an hour with BeautifulSoup, re, and urllib2.

I've found Ctrl-f applied to ./library works ok.

Answer 7

Easy-to-navigate python reference manual:

Go to the obvious(?) place -- Python Library manual, datetime module: http://docs.python.org/library/datetime.html

In the table of contents in the panel on the left, notice "8.1.5 time Objects". Click on the link.

Read the top of the page:

class datetime.time(hour[, minute[, second[, microsecond[, tzinfo]]]])

Update OK, so we want "utcoffset" and it's not at the top of the page. Try this in your browser: <Ctrl-F>, type "utcoffset" (without the quotes), <Enter>

Alternative: (may be available only on Windows and Linux) -- a CHM version of the docs is included with Windows Python distributions and I've heard that it can be used on Linux as well. Start it up, click on Index, type "utcoffset" (without the quotes), <Enter> and it'll display three options -- it's a method of datetime.(datetime|time|tzinfo)