Patch by Michael Scharf. He writes:

    The module cmd requires for each do_xxx command a help_xxx
    function. I think this is a little old fashioned.

    Here is a patch: use the docstring as help if no help_xxx
    function can be found.

[I'm tempted to rip out all the help_* functions from pdb, but I'll
resist it.  Any takers?  --Guido]

diff --git a/Lib/cmd.py b/Lib/cmd.py
index 138cdb6034c26bc34ca89e8dbfdfcc35b54c3c2a..9ca0010a1aee3db457b52bcb91309b404cf184c3 100644 (file)
--- a/Lib/cmd.py
+++ b/Lib/cmd.py
@@ -127,6 +127,13 @@ class Cmd:
                        try:
                                func = getattr(self, 'help_' + arg)
                        except:
+                               try:
+                                       doc=getattr(self, 'do_' + arg).__doc__
+                                       if doc:
+                                               print doc
+                                               return
+                               except:
+                                       pass
                                print self.nohelp % (arg,)
                                return
                        func()
@@ -159,6 +166,8 @@ class Cmd:
                                        if help.has_key(cmd):
                                                cmds_doc.append(cmd)
                                                del help[cmd]
+                                       elif getattr(self, name).__doc__:
+                                               cmds_doc.append(cmd)
                                        else:
                                                cmds_undoc.append(cmd)
                        print self.doc_leader