pydocstyle

Installation

Use pip or easy_install:

pip install pydocstyle

Alternatively, you can use pydocstyle.py source file directly - it is self-contained.

Usage

Usage: pydocstyle [options] [<file|dir>...]
Options:
  --version             show program's version number and exit
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -e, --explain         show explanation of each error
  -s, --source          show source for each error
  -d, --debug           print debug information
  -v, --verbose         print status information
  --count               print total number of errors to stdout
  --config=<path>       use given config file and disable config discovery
  --match=<pattern>     check only files that exactly match <pattern> regular
                        expression; default is --match='(?!test_).*\.py' which
                        matches files that don't start with 'test_' but end
                        with '.py'
  --match-dir=<pattern>
                        search only dirs that exactly match <pattern> regular
                        expression; default is --match-dir='[^\.].*', which
                        matches all dirs that don't start with a dot
  --ignore-decorators=<decorators>
                        ignore any functions or methods that are decorated by
                        a function with a name fitting the <decorators>
                        regular expression; default is --ignore-decorators=''
                        which does not ignore any decorated functions.
  Note:
    When using --match, --match-dir or --ignore-decorators consider
    whether you should use a single quote (') or a double quote ("),
    depending on your OS, Shell, etc.
  Error Check Options:
    Only one of --select, --ignore or --convention can be specified. If
    none is specified, defaults to `--convention=pep257`. These three
    options select the "basic list" of error codes to check. If you wish
    to change that list (for example, if you selected a known convention
    but wish to ignore a specific error from it or add a new one) you can
    use `--add-[ignore/select]` in order to do so.
    --select=<codes>    choose the basic list of checked errors by specifying
                        which errors to check for (with a list of comma-
                        separated error codes or prefixes). for example:
                        --select=D101,D2
    --ignore=<codes>    choose the basic list of checked errors by specifying
                        which errors to ignore out of all of the available
                        error codes (with a list of comma-separated error
                        codes or prefixes). for example: --ignore=D101,D2
    --convention=<name>
                        choose the basic list of checked errors by specifying
                        an existing convention. Possible conventions: pep257,
                        numpy, google.
    --add-select=<codes>
                        add extra error codes to check to the basic list of
                        errors previously set by --select, --ignore or
                        --convention.
    --add-ignore=<codes>
                        ignore extra error codes by removing them from the
                        basic list previously set by --select, --ignore or
                        --convention.

NOTE:

Return Code

Configuration Files

pydocstyle supports ini-like and toml configuration files. In order for pydocstyle to use a configuration file automatically, it must be named one of the following options.

When searching for a configuration file, pydocstyle looks for one of the file specified above in that exact order. ini-like configuration files must have a [pydocstyle] section while toml configuration files must have a [tool.pydocstyle] section. If a configuration file was not found, pydocstyle keeps looking for one up the directory tree until one is found or uses the default configuration.

NOTE:

NOTE:

Available Options

Not all configuration options are available in the configuration files. Available options are:

See the Usage section for more information.

Inheritance

By default, when finding a configuration file, pydocstyle tries to inherit the parent directory's configuration and merge them to the local ones.

The merge process is as follows:

In order to disable this (useful for configuration files located in your repo's root), simply add inherit=false to your configuration file.

NOTE:

Example

[pydocstyle]
inherit = false
ignore = D100,D203,D405
match = .*\.py

In-file configuration

pydocstyle supports inline commenting to skip specific checks on specific functions or methods. The supported comments that can be added are:

For example, this will skip the check for a period at the end of a function docstring:

>>> def bad_function():  # noqa: D400
...     """Omit a period in the docstring as an exception"""
...     pass

Usage with the pre-commit git hooks framework

pydocstyle can be included as a hook for pre-commit. The easiest way to get started is to add this configuration to your .pre-commit-config.yaml:

-   repo: https://github.com/pycqa/pydocstyle
    rev: 6.1.1  # pick a git hash / tag to point to
    hooks:
    -   id: pydocstyle

See the pre-commit docs for how to customize this configuration.

Checked-in python files will be passed as positional arguments so no need to use --match=*.py. You can also use command line arguments instead of configuration files to achieve the same effect with less files.

- id: pydocstyle
  args:
  - --ignore=D100,D203,D405
  # or multiline
  - |-
          --select=
          D101,
          D2

Grouping

Default conventions

Not all error codes are checked for by default. There are three conventions that may be used by pydocstyle: pep257, numpy and google.

The pep257 convention (specified in PEP257), which is enabled by default in pydocstyle, checks for all of the above errors except for D203, D212, D213, D214, D215, D404, D405, D406, D407, D408, D409, D410, D411, D413, D415, D416 and D417.

The numpy convention added in v2.0.0 supports the numpydoc docstring standard. This checks all of of the errors except for D107, D203, D212, D213, D402, D413, D415, D416, and D417.

The google convention added in v4.0.0 supports the Google Python Style Guide. This checks for all the errors except D203, D204, D213, D215, D400, D401, D404, D406, D407, D408, D409 and D413.

These conventions may be specified using --convention=<name> when running pydocstyle from the command line or by specifying the convention in a configuration file. See the cli_usage section for more details.

NOTE:

Publicity

The D1xx group of errors deals with missing docstring in public constructs: modules, classes, methods, etc. It is important to note how publicity is determined and what its effects are.

How publicity is determined

Publicity for all constructs is determined as follows: a construct is considered public if -

A construct's immediate parent is the construct that contains it. For example, a method's parent is a class object. A class' parent is usually a module, but might also be a function, method, etc. A module can either have no parent, or it can have a parent that is a package.

In order for a construct to be considered public, its immediate parent must also be public. Since this definition is recursive, it means that all of its parents need to be public. The corollary is that if a construct is considered private, then all of its descendants are also considered private. For example, a class called _Foo is considered private. A method bar in _Foo is also considered private since its parent is a private class, even though its name does not begin with a single underscore.

Note, a module's parent is recursively checked upward until we reach a directory in sys.path to avoid considering the complete filepath of a module. For example, consider the module /_foo/bar/baz.py. If PYTHONPATH is set to /, then baz.py is private. If PYTHONPATH is set to /_foo/, then baz.py is public.

Modules are parsed to look if __all__ is defined. If so, only those top level constructs are considered public. The parser looks for __all__ defined as a literal list or tuple. As the parser doesn't execute the module, any mutation of __all__ will not be considered.

How publicity affects error reports

The immediate effect of a construct being determined as private is that no D1xx errors will be reported for it (or its children, as the previous section explains). A private method, for instance, will not generate a D102 error, even if it has no docstring.

However, it is important to note that while docstring are optional for private construct, they are still required to adhere to your style guide. So if a private module _foo.py does not have a docstring, it will not generate a D100 error, but if it does have a docstring, that docstring might generate other errors.

pydocstyle is a rename and continuation of pep257, a project created by Vladimir Keleshev.

Maintained by Amir Rachum and Sambhav Kothari.