Documenting Source Code in PyCharm

In this part:

• Documenting Source Code in PyCharm
  • Basics
  • Prerequisites
• Enabling Creation of Documentation Comments
• Creating Documentation Comments
• Generating Reference Documentation
• Type Hinting in PyCharm
• Using Docstrings to Specify Types

Basics

PyCharm provides convenient features for creating documentation comments.

Documentation comments in your source code are available for the Quick Documentation Lookup and open for review on pressing Ctrl+Q or Alt+Button2 Click.

Documentation comments can be created in accordance with the RDoc or YARD syntax.

Documentation comments can be created in accordance with the syntax, selected in the Python Integrated Tools page of the Settings/Preferences dialog, for example, reStructuredText or epytext.
If this feature applies to a function, PyCharm generates tags, depending on the selected docstring format, for example:

• For reStructuredText: :param tags for each parameter declared in the function signature, and :return tag.
• For epytext: @param tags for each parameter declared in the function signature, and @return tag.

So doing, the tags in reStructuredText and epytext markup are highlighted accordingly.

If configured, the documentation comment stubs can be generated with type and rtype tags.

When you create additional tags, PyCharm provides code completion that suggests the possible tag names.

Prerequisites

In the Python files, PyCharm recognizes the documentation comments represented as Python docstrings.

Before you start, make sure that the required docstring format, for example, epytext or reStructuredText, is selected in the Python Integrated Tools page.

Also note that PyCharm captures custom roles from conf.py. When configuring the directory that contains *.rst files, point to the directory with conf.py (Python Integrated Tools | Path to the directory with *.rst files).