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Author exarkun
Recipients exarkun
Date 2009-02-12.21:16:26
SpamBayes Score 3.0674873e-05
Marked as misclassified No
Message-id <1234473388.92.0.353382315269.issue5230@psf.upfronthosting.co.za>
In-reply-to
Content
If pydoc is used to try to look up the documentation for a module which
does not exist, this is reported reasonably:

    exarkun@charm:~$ pydoc foobarbaz
    no Python documentation found for 'foobarbaz'
    
    exarkun@charm:~$

However, if it is used to look up the documentation for a module which
does exist but which itself imports a module which does not exist, then
the same report is made:

    exarkun@charm:~$ cat > foobarbaz.py
    import barbazquux
    exarkun@charm:~$ pydoc foobarbaz
    no Python documentation found for 'foobarbaz'
    
    exarkun@charm:~$

This is somewhat misleading, since it suggests that there is no such
module "foobarbaz", when the problem is solved by installing the module
"barbazquux":

    exarkun@charm:~$ touch barbazquux.py
    exarkun@charm:~$ pydoc foobarbaz
    Help on module foobarbaz:

    ...
    exarkun@charm:~$ 

I'm sure the cause of this is the incautious handling of ImportError by
pydoc, resulting in the mistaken identification of the problem.
History
Date User Action Args
2009-02-12 21:16:29exarkunsetrecipients: + exarkun
2009-02-12 21:16:28exarkunsetmessageid: <1234473388.92.0.353382315269.issue5230@psf.upfronthosting.co.za>
2009-02-12 21:16:27exarkunlinkissue5230 messages
2009-02-12 21:16:26exarkuncreate