>> Howdy all,

>> The following is a common idiom::

>>     class FooGonk(object):
>>         def frobnicate(self):
>>             """ Frobnicate this gonk. """
>>             basic_implementation(self.wobble)

>>     class BarGonk(FooGonk):
>>         def frobnicate(self):
>>             special_implementation(self.warble)

>> The docstring for ‘FooGonk.frobnicate’ is, intentionally, perfectly
>> applicable to the ‘BarGonk.frobnicate’ method also. Yet in overriding
>> the method, the original docstring is not associated with it.

>> Ideally there would be a way to specify that the docstring should be
>> inherited. The best I can come up with is::

>>     class BarGonk(FooGonk):
>>         def frobnicate(self):
>>             special_implementation(self.warble)
>>         frobnicate.__doc__ = FooGonk.frobnicate.__doc__

>> but that violates DRY (the association between BarGonk and FooGonk is
>> being repeated), puts the docstring assignment awkwardly after the end
>> of the method instead of at the beginning where docstrings normally go,
>> and reads poorly besides.

>> What is the most Pythonic, DRY-adherent, and preferably least-ugly
>> approach to override a method, but have the same docstring on both
>> methods?

> Just thinking aloud: Write a patch for pydoc that looks up the base-class
> documentation.

> B.f.__doc__ will continue to return None, but

> help(B.f) will show something like

>    No documentation available for B.f.

>    Help for A.f:
>    yadda yadda

> Of course that might be misleading when A.f and B.f are up to something
> completely different...