PHEP: documentation standards #48
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jtniehof
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Oct 19, 2025
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| 1. All functions, classes, and modules in the public application programming interface (API) **must** have documentation strings (docstrings). | ||
| 2. Docstrings **must** follow a convention established by the project. [PEP 257](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0257/) is a minimum requirement but more extensive conventions such as [numpydoc](https://numpydoc.readthedocs.io/en/latest/format.html) are recommended. | ||
| 3. Docstrings **must** describe the code’s purpose, describe all inputs and outputs, and provide examples. |
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This is the smartquote failure in CI, will be fixed next push.
jtniehof
commented
Oct 19, 2025
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| 1. All functions, classes, and modules in the public application programming interface (API) **must** have documentation strings (docstrings). | ||
| 2. Docstrings **must** follow a convention established by the project. [PEP 257](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0257/) is a minimum requirement but more extensive conventions such as [numpydoc](https://numpydoc.readthedocs.io/en/latest/format.html) are recommended. | ||
| 3. Docstrings **must** describe the code’s purpose, describe all inputs and outputs, and provide examples. |
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Also smartquote fail, to be fixed.
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@jtniehof Assigned PHEP number 7 |
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This PHEP updates the documentation (8) standard. Closes #34.
The changes from the original are documented within the PHEP, and some best practices are added as suggestions.
I would love a lot more examples of things that are done well in our projects. See other open issues.
This PR also updates the standards.md in conjunction with the PHEP text.