pydocstyle’s documentation

(formerly pep257)

pydocstyle is a static analysis tool for checking compliance with Python docstring conventions.

pydocstyle supports most of PEP 257 out of the box, but it should not be considered a reference implementation.

Quick Start

  1. Install

    pip install pydocstyle
    
  2. Run

    $ pydocstyle test.py
    test.py:18 in private nested class `meta`:
            D101: Docstring missing
    test.py:22 in public method `method`:
            D102: Docstring missing
    ...
    
  3. Fix your code :)

Contents:

Usage

Installation

Use pip or easy_install:

pip install pydocstyle

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

Command Line Interface

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
  --select=<codes>      choose the basic list of checked errors by specifying
                        which errors to check for (with a list of comma-
                        separated error codes). for example:
                        --select=D101,D202
  --ignore=<codes>      choose the basic list of checked errors by specifying
                        which errors to ignore (with a list of comma-separated
                        error codes). for example: --ignore=D101,D202
  --convention=<name>   choose the basic list of checked errors by specifying
                        an existing convention. Possible conventions: pep257
  --add-select=<codes>  amend the list of errors to check for by specifying
                        more error codes to check.
  --add-ignore=<codes>  amend the list of errors to check for by specifying
                        more error codes to ignore.
  --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

Return Code

0 Success - no violations
1 Some code violations were found
2 Illegal usage - see error message

Configuration Files

pydocstyle supports ini-like configuration files. In order for pydocstyle to use it, it must be named one of the following options, and have a [pydocstyle] section.

  • setup.cfg
  • tox.ini
  • .pydocstyle
  • .pydocstylerc

When searching for a configuration file, pydocstyle looks for one of the file specified above in that exact order. If a configuration file was not found, it keeps looking for one up the directory tree until one is found or uses the default configuration.

Note

For backwards compatibility purposes, pydocstyle supports configuration files named .pep257, as well as section header [pep257]. However, these are considered deprecated and support will be removed in the next major version.

Available Options

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

  • convention
  • select
  • ignore
  • add_select
  • add_ignore
  • match
  • match_dir

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:

  • If one of select, ignore or convention was specified in the child configuration - Ignores the parent configuration and set the new error codes to check. Otherwise, simply copies the parent checked error codes.
  • If add-ignore or add-select were specified, adds or removes the specified error codes from the checked error codes list.
  • If match or match-dir were specified - use them. Otherwise, use the parent’s.

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

Note

If any of select, ignore or convention were specified in the CLI, the configuration files will take no part in choosing which error codes will be checked. match and match-dir will still take effect.

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

Error Codes

Grouping

Missing Docstrings
D100 Missing docstring in public module
D101 Missing docstring in public class
D102 Missing docstring in public method
D103 Missing docstring in public function
D104 Missing docstring in public package
D105 Missing docstring in magic method
Whitespace Issues
D200 One-line docstring should fit on one line with quotes
D201 No blank lines allowed before function docstring
D202 No blank lines allowed after function docstring
D203 1 blank line required before class docstring
D204 1 blank line required after class docstring
D205 1 blank line required between summary line and description
D206 Docstring should be indented with spaces, not tabs
D207 Docstring is under-indented
D208 Docstring is over-indented
D209 Multi-line docstring closing quotes should be on a separate line
D210 No whitespaces allowed surrounding docstring text
D211 No blank lines allowed before class docstring
Quotes Issues
D300 Use “”“triple double quotes”“”
D301 Use r”“” if any backslashes in a docstring
D302 Use u”“” for Unicode docstrings
Docstring Content Issues
D400 First line should end with a period
D401 First line should be in imperative mood
D402 First line should not be the function’s “signature”
D403 First word of the first line should be properly capitalized

Default Checks

Not all error codes are checked for by default. The default behavior is to check only error codes that are part of the PEP257 official convention.

All of the above error codes are checked for by default except for D203.

Release Notes

pydocstyle version numbers follow the Semantic Versioning specification.

1.0.0 - January 30th, 2016

Major Updates

  • The project was renamed to pydocstyle and the new release will be 1.0.0!

New Features

  • Added support for Python 3.5 (#145).
  • Classes nested inside classes are no longer considered private. Nested classes are considered public if their names are not prepended with an underscore and if their parent class is public, recursively (#13, #146).
  • Added the D403 error code - “First word of the first line should be properly capitalized”. This new error is turned on by default (#164, #165, #170).
  • Added support for .pydocstylerc and as configuration file name (#140, #173).

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue where a NameError was raised when parsing complex definitions of __all__ (#142, #143).
  • Fixed a bug where D202 was falsely reported when a function with just a docstring and no content was followed by a comment (#165).
  • Fixed wrong __all__ definition in main module (#150, #156).
  • Fixed a bug where an AssertionError could occur when parsing __future__ imports (#154).

Older Versions

Note

Versions documented below are before renaming the project from pep257 to pydocstyle.

0.7.0 - October 9th, 2015

New Features

  • Added the D104 error code - “Missing docstring in public package”. This new error is turned on by default. Missing docstring in __init__.py files which previously resulted in D100 errors (“Missing docstring in public module”) will now result in D104 (#105, #127).
  • Added the D105 error code - “Missing docstring in magic method’. This new error is turned on by default. Missing docstrings in magic method which previously resulted in D102 error (“Missing docstring in public method”) will now result in D105. Note that exceptions to this rule are variadic magic methods - specifically __init__, __call__ and __new__, which will be considered non-magic and missing docstrings in them will result in D102 (#60, #139).
  • Support the option to exclude all error codes. Running pep257 with --select= (or select= in the configuration file) will exclude all errors which could then be added one by one using add-select. Useful for projects new to pep257 (#132, #135).
  • Added check D211: No blank lines allowed before class docstring. This change is a result of a change to the official PEP257 convention. Therefore, D211 will now be checked by default instead of D203, which required a single blank line before a class docstring (#137).
  • Configuration files are now handled correctly. The closer a configuration file is to a checked file the more it matters. Configuration files no longer support explain, source, debug, verbose or count (#133).

Bug Fixes

  • On Python 2.x, D302 (“Use u”“” for Unicode docstrings”) is not reported if unicode_literals is imported from __future__ (#113, #134).
  • Fixed a bug where there was no executable for pep257 on Windows (#73, #136).

0.6.0 - July 20th, 2015

New Features

  • Added support for more flexible error selections using --ignore, --select, --convention, --add-ignore and --add-select (#96, #123).

Bug Fixes

  • Property setter and deleter methods are now treated as private and do not require docstrings separate from the main property method (#69, #107).
  • Fixed an issue where pep257 did not accept docstrings that are both unicode and raw in Python 2.x (#116, #119).
  • Fixed an issue where Python 3.x files with Unicode encodings were not read correctly (#118).

0.5.0 - March 14th, 2015

New Features

  • Added check D210: No whitespaces allowed surrounding docstring text (#95).
  • Added real documentation rendering using Sphinx (#100, #101).

Bug Fixes

  • Removed log level configuration from module level (#98).
  • D205 used to check that there was a blank line between the one line summary and the description. It now checks that there is exactly one blank line between them (#79).
  • Fixed a bug where --match-dir was not properly respected (#108, #109).

0.4.1 - January 10th, 2015

Bug Fixes

  • Getting ImportError when trying to run pep257 as the installed script (#92, #93).

0.4.0 - January 4th, 2015

Warning

A fatal bug was discovered in this version (#92). Please use a newer version.

New Features

  • Added configuration file support (#58, #87).
  • Added a --count flag that prints the number of violations found (#86, #89).
  • Added support for Python 3.4, PyPy and PyPy3 (#81).

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed broken tests (#74).
  • Fixed parsing various colon and parenthesis combinations in definitions (#82).
  • Allow for greater flexibility in parsing __all__ (#67).
  • Fixed handling of one-liner definitions (#77).

0.3.2 - March 11th, 2014

First documented release!

License

Copyright (c) 2012 GreenSteam, <http://greensteam.dk/> Copyright (c) 2014-2016 Amir Rachum, <http://amir.rachum.com/>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Credits

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

Maintained by Amir Rachum.