Extension: PydocΒΆ

You can use pydoc to search through the Python libraries installed on your system. At the command prompt type the following:

$ pydoc3 -b

and a browser window with something similar to the following will appear:

pydoc window

This is a listing of all the python libraries found by Python on your system. Clicking on a module name opens a new page with documenation for that module.

Scrolling down to the /usr/lib/python3.11 section and clicking keyword, for example, opens the following page:

Pydoc: module keyword

Documentation for most modules contains three color coded sections:

  • Classes in pink

  • Functions in orange

  • Data in green

Classes will be discussed in later chapters, but for now we can use pydoc to see the functions and data contained within modules.

The keyword module contains a single function, iskeyword, which as its name suggests is a boolean function that returns True if a string passed to it is a keyword:

>>> from keyword import *
>>> iskeyword('for')
True
>>> iskeyword('all')
False
>>>

The data item, kwlist contains a list of all the current keywords in Python:

>>> from keyword import *
>>> print kwlist
['and', 'as', 'assert', 'break', 'class', 'continue', 'def', 'del',
'elif', 'else', 'except', 'exec', 'finally', 'for', 'from', 'global',
'if', 'import', 'in', 'is', 'lambda', 'not', 'or', 'pass', 'print',
'raise', 'return', 'try', 'while', 'with', 'yield']
>>>

We encourage you to use pydoc to explore the extensive libraries that come with Python. There are so many treasures to discover!