Python: Essential Reference, Third Edition

doctest

The doctest module examines documentation strings for text fragments that look like interactive Python sessions. These fragments are then executed and verified to see if they produce the output shown. Here is a short example:

 def gcd(x,y): """ Computes the greatest common divisor of x and y. For example: >>> gcd(40,16) 8 >>> gcd(24,15) 3 >>> gcd(12,85) 1 Both arguments must be positive integers. >>> gcd(3.5,4.2) Traceback (most recent call last): ... TypeError: Arguments must be integers >>> gcd(-4,7) Traceback (most recent call last): ... ValueError: Arguments must be positive integers Long integers may also be used. In this case, the returned value is also a long. >>> gcd(23748928388L, 6723884L) 4L """ if not (isinstance(x,(int,long)) ...