How to Get Help Information about a Class in Python

In this article, we show how to get help information about a class in Python.

So if you are working with a particular class in Python, you may need may help working with this class.

You can get this help by passing this class into the help() function in Python.

Let's say for example, we want to find information about the date class in the datetime module in Python.

We do this with the following code shown below.

>>> import datetime >>> help(datetime.date) Help on class date in module datetime: class date(builtins.object) | date(year, month, day) --> date object | | Methods defined here: | | __add__(self, value, /) | Return self+value. | | __eq__(self, value, /) | Return self==value. | | __format__(...) | Formats self with strftime. | | __ge__(self, value, /) | Return self>=value. | | __getattribute__(self, name, /) | Return getattr(self, name). | | __gt__(self, value, /) | Return self>value. | | __hash__(self, /) | Return hash(self). | | __le__(self, value, /) | Return self<=value. | | __lt__(self, value, /) | Return self<value. | | __ne__(self, value, /) | Return self!=value. | | __new__(*args, **kwargs) from builtins.type | Create and return a new object. See help(type) for accurate signature. | | __radd__(self, value, /) | Return value+self. | | __reduce__(...) | __reduce__() -> (cls, state) | | __repr__(self, /) | Return repr(self). | | __rsub__(self, value, /) | Return value-self. | | __str__(self, /) | Return str(self). | | __sub__(self, value, /) | Return self-value. | | ctime(...) | Return ctime() style string. | | fromordinal(...) from builtins.type | int -> date corresponding to a proleptic Gregorian ordinal. | | fromtimestamp(...) from builtins.type | timestamp -> local date from a POSIX timestamp (like time.time()). | | isocalendar(...) | Return a 3-tuple containing ISO year, week number, and weekday. | | isoformat(...) | Return string in ISO 8601 format, YYYY-MM-DD. | | isoweekday(...) | Return the day of the week represented by the date. | Monday == 1 ... Sunday == 7 | | replace(...) | Return date with new specified fields. | | strftime(...) | format -> strftime() style string. | | timetuple(...) | Return time tuple, compatible with time.localtime(). | | today(...) from builtins.type | Current date or datetime: same as self.__class__.fromtimestamp(time.time()). | | toordinal(...) | Return proleptic Gregorian ordinal. January 1 of year 1 is day 1. | | weekday(...) | Return the day of the week represented by the date. | Monday == 0 ... Sunday == 6 | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | Data descriptors defined here: | | day | | month | | year | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | Data and other attributes defined here: | | max = datetime.date(9999, 12, 31) | | min = datetime.date(1, 1, 1) | | resolution = datetime.timedelta(1)

So let's now go over this code.

So the first thing we have to do is import the datetime module. In order to get information about a class in a module, you first need to import that module. So we import the datetime module.

We then find out information about the datetime.date class by passing it into the help() function.

After we do this, we get a lot of information about the datetime.date class. Data descriptors defined here: | | day | | month | | year | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | Data and other attributes defined here: | | max = datetime.date(9999, 12, 31) | | min = datetime.date(1, 1, 1) |

Here all of the methods of a class are listed.

We also have data descriptors for the date class data, which is day, month, and year.

We also have attributes for the data defined, such as the max value for the date object is datetime.date(9999, 12, 31), which is December 31, 9999. The minimum date that can be entered is 1/1/1.

So using the help() function can give us valuable information about a class in Python.

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