How to generate documentation for multiple files using pydoc

Question

I tried to generate documentation for my python project using pydoc.

My repository looks like this:

main.py
src/
├─ cli.py
├─ ui.py

In the main.py file, I have these imports:

import argparse
import sys
from PyQt5 import QtWidgets

from src.cli import CommandLineTool
from src.ui import UserInterfaceTool

When I tried to generate the documentation using python -m pydoc -w main, it worked but there is no reference to the src.cli and src.ui modules. Here is the modules part in HTML:

<tr><td class="decor pkg-content-decor"><span class="code">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
<td class="singlecolumn"><table><tr><td class="multicolumn"><a href="PyQt5.QtWidgets.html">PyQt5.QtWidgets</a><br>
</td><td class="multicolumn"><a href="argparse.html">argparse</a><br>
</td><td class="multicolumn"><a href="sys.html">sys</a><br>
</td><td class="multicolumn"></td></tr></table></td></tr></table>
</body></html>

I generated the docs for src.ui and src.cli using python -m pydoc -w src.ui and python -m pydoc -w src.cli but the result is still the same. Do you know if it's something that is doable with pydoc, or if I maybe missed a parameter or an option somewhere ?

Answer 1

Add an empty __init__.py to your src folder so pydoc treats it as a package:

main.py
src/
├── __init__.py   # Empty file
├─ cli.py
└─ ui.py

Create it with:

touch src/__init__.py

... or manually in your editor/IDE.