Make python __doc__ property display correctly in a Windows CMD window?

Question

In Windows, if I open a command prompt, start python, and inspect something using its __doc__ property, it doesn't display correctly. Instead of the lines being separated, I see one continuous string with the newline character every once and a while.

Is there a way to make it appear correctly?

Here's an example of what I see:

>>> hashlib.__doc__

'hashlib module - A common interface to many hash functions.\n\nnew(name, string=\'\') - returns a n ew hash object implementing the\n given hash function; initializing the hash\n using the given string data.\n\nNamed constructor functions are also availabl e, these are much faster\nthan using new():\n\nmd5(), sha1(), sha224(), sha256(), sha384(), and sha5 12()\n\nMore algorithms may be available on your platform but the above are\nguaranteed to exist.\n\ nNOTE: If you want the adler32 or crc32 hash functions they are available in\nthe zlib module.\n\nCh

Answer 1

try

>>> print hashlib.__doc__

or (v3)

>>> print(hashlib.__doc__)

Answer 2

Rather than pulling __doc__ yourself, try this:

>>> help(hashlib)

It will give you a nicely formatted summary of the module, including (but not limited to) the docstring.