diff -r 84658272e923 Lib/pydoc.py
--- a/Lib/pydoc.py	Thu Sep 19 21:06:37 2013 -0500
+++ b/Lib/pydoc.py	Wed Sep 25 12:31:41 2013 +0530
@@ -64,6 +64,8 @@
 import time
 import tokenize
 import warnings
+import ast
+from token import tok_name
 from collections import deque
 from reprlib import Repr
 from traceback import extract_tb, format_exception_only
@@ -202,22 +204,27 @@
                 return True
     return False
 
-def source_synopsis(file):
-    line = file.readline()
-    while line[:1] == '#' or not line.strip():
-        line = file.readline()
-        if not line: break
-    line = line.strip()
-    if line[:4] == 'r"""': line = line[1:]
-    if line[:3] == '"""':
-        line = line[3:]
-        if line[-1:] == '\\': line = line[:-1]
-        while not line.strip():
-            line = file.readline()
-            if not line: break
-        result = line.split('"""')[0].strip()
-    else: result = None
-    return result
+def source_synopsis(file_):
+    """Takes a file object and returns the one-line summary if present"""
+    if hasattr(file_, 'buffer'):
+        file_ = file_.buffer
+    if isinstance(file_, io.TextIOBase):
+        try:
+            file_ = io.BytesIO(bytes(file_.read(), 'utf-8'))
+        except UnicodeEncodeError:
+            # exception is raised if both utf-8 and latin-1 don't work
+            file_ = io.BytesIO(bytes(file_.read(), 'latin-1'))
+
+    tokens = tokenize.tokenize(file_.readline)
+
+    # tokenize always returns atleast ENCODING and ENDMARKER
+    for token in tokens:
+        token.name = tok_name[token.type]
+        if token.name not in ['COMMENT', 'NL', 'ENCODING']:
+            break
+    if token.name == 'STRING':
+        return ast.literal_eval(token.string).strip().split('\n')[0].strip()
+    return None
 
 def synopsis(filename, cache={}):
     """Get the one-line summary out of a module file."""
diff -r 84658272e923 Lib/test/test_pydoc.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_pydoc.py	Thu Sep 19 21:06:37 2013 -0500
+++ b/Lib/test/test_pydoc.py	Wed Sep 25 12:31:41 2013 +0530
@@ -417,6 +417,33 @@
             synopsis = pydoc.synopsis(TESTFN, {})
             self.assertEqual(synopsis, 'line 1: h\xe9')
 
+    def test_synopsis_with_triple_single_quotes(self):
+        # test for issue 1185124
+        # synopsis is extracted even for single quoted triple strings
+        self.addCleanup(unlink, TESTFN)
+        for encoding in ('ISO-8859-1', 'UTF-8'):
+            with open(TESTFN, 'w', encoding=encoding) as script:
+                if encoding != 'UTF-8':
+                    print('#coding: {}'.format(encoding), file=script)
+                print("'''\nline 1: h\xe9", file=script)
+                print("line 2: hi'''", file=script)
+            synopsis = pydoc.synopsis(TESTFN, {})
+            self.assertEqual(synopsis, 'line 1: h\xe9')
+
+    def test_source_synopsis(self):
+        # extension to issue 1185124
+        # source_synopsis should now work in all cases where __doc__ works
+
+        # single quotes
+        example_string = "#!/usr/bin/python\n\n'Module summary'\nprint('hello')"
+        synopsis = pydoc.source_synopsis(StringIO(example_string))
+        self.assertEqual(synopsis, 'Module summary')
+
+        # double quotes
+        example_string = '"summary"'
+        synopsis = pydoc.source_synopsis(StringIO(example_string))
+        self.assertEqual(synopsis, 'summary')
+
     def test_splitdoc_with_description(self):
         example_string = "I Am A Doc\n\n\nHere is my description"
         self.assertEqual(pydoc.splitdoc(example_string),