Is there a way to keep docstrings separate from the functions they document?

I'm working on a module with many small functions but whose docstrings tend to be quite long. The docstrings make working on the module irritating as I have to constantly scroll over a long docstring to find a little bit of actual code.

Is there a way to keep docstrings separate from the functions they docum开发者_StackOverflow中文版ent? I'd really like to be able to specify the docstrings at the end of the file away from the code or, even better, in a separate file.

The docstring for a function is available as the special attribute __doc__.

>>> def f(x):
...     "return the square of x"
...     return x * x
>>> f.__doc__
'return the square of x'
>>> help(f)
(help page with appropriate docstring)
>>> f.__doc__ = "Return the argument squared"
>>> help(f)
(help page with new docstring)

That demonstrates the technique, anyway. In practice you can:

def f(x):
    return x * x

f.__doc__ = """
Return the square of the function argument.

Arguments: x - number to square

Return value: x squared

Exceptions: none

Global variables used: none

Side effects: none

Limitations: none
"""

...or whatever you want to put in your docstrings.