In Python, suppose you want to implement a class which has a dynamically generated docstring. The easiest way to do this would be to use the @property decorator for the __doc__ attribute. (You also need your class to be a “new-style” class, i.e., inherit from object). For example:

class A(object):
    """Docstring for class."""
    def __init__(self, x):
        self.x = x
    @property
    def __doc__(self):
        return "My value of x is %s." % self.x

This gives the desired result:

>>> a = A(10)
>>> print(a.__doc__)
My value of x is 10.

But hides the docstring for the class A:

>>> A.__doc__
<property at 0x2083db8>

Read on to see how we can fix this. Continue reading A data descriptor for __doc__ →