help() on stdout.closed

[Pekka Karjalainen]

Python 2.4.1 (#1, May 16 2005, 15:19:29)
[GCC 4.0.0 20050512 (Red Hat 4.0.0-5)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

from sys import stdout
help (stdout.closed)
If I do this, it gives me help on the bool object. Also:
stdout.closed.__doc__

'bool(x) -> bool\n\nReturns True when the argument x is true, False
otherwise.\nThe builtins True and False are the only two instances of the
class bool.\nThe class bool is a subclass of the class int, and cannot be
subclassed.'

What's going on here? Other docstrings in sys.stdout work fine.

Pekka (uses 2.4.3 on another comp)

[Jon Ribbens]

In article <sl*********************@lastu30.oulu.fi>, Pekka Karjalainen wrote:

from sys import stdout
help (stdout.closed)

If I do this, it gives me help on the bool object.

stdout.closed is a bool. What were you expecting it to show you?

[Fredrik Lundh]

Pekka Karjalainen wrote:

from sys import stdout
help (stdout.closed)
If I do this, it gives me help on the bool object.
that's probably because "sys.stdout.closed" *is* a bool object:

sys.stdout.closed False type(sys.stdout.closed) <type 'bool'>

there's no way the reflection system can figure out how a given boolean was
created; all it knows is that it gets an object of a given type.
Other docstrings in sys.stdout work fine.

have you tried things like
help(sys.stdout.name)
and
help(sys.stdout.write("hello"))

?

</F>

[Pekka Karjalainen]

On 2006-06-21, Fredrik Lundh <fr*****@pythonware.com> wrote:

have you tried things like

[...]

I have now. I'm not sure what the results are supposed to tell me, but I
am not going to press the issue.

Suppose I had no idea what sys.stdout.closed was and wanted to find out.
Where would I look it up?

Pekka

[Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch]

In <sl*********************@lastu30.oulu.fi>, Pekka Karjalainen wrote:

Suppose I had no idea what sys.stdout.closed was and wanted to find out.
Where would I look it up?

`sys.stdout` is a file (like) object:

http://docs.python.org/lib/bltin-file-objects.html

Ciao,
Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch

[Fredrik Lundh]

Pekka Karjalainen wrote:

Suppose I had no idea what sys.stdout.closed was and wanted to find out.
Where would I look it up?

help(sys.stdout) ....
| closed = <attribute 'closed' of 'file' objects>
| True if the file is closed
....

in case anyone feels like hacking, support for something like
help(sys.stdout, "closed")

might be useful, I think.

</F>

[Nick Craig-Wood]

Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch <bj****@gmx.net> wrote:

In <sl*********************@lastu30.oulu.fi>, Pekka Karjalainen wrote:

Suppose I had no idea what sys.stdout.closed was and wanted to find out.
Where would I look it up?

`sys.stdout` is a file (like) object:

http://docs.python.org/lib/bltin-file-objects.html

Since the OP is using linux he may prefer to look this up using
"info". Info contains all the same stuff as the web pages and it is
terminal friendly.

To find the below I typed

info
CTRL-S pytho
Cursor down to "Python2.3-lib:" and press ENTER
CTRL-S closed
CTRL-S, CTRL-S until correct entry found (the 4th one)

....

File objects also offer a number of other interesting attributes.
These are not required for file-like objects, but should be implemented
if they make sense for the particular object.

`closed'
bool indicating the current state of the file object. This is a
read-only attribute; the `close()' method changes the value. It
may not be available on all file-like objects.

--
Nick Craig-Wood <ni**@craig-wood.com> -- http://www.craig-wood.com/nick