[brehaut]

In a python repl dir(object) and help, help(object) are what you are looking for. Both these functions are in the default namespace

    dir(__builtins__) 

Returns a list of strings for all the names bound in the prelude namespace.

    dir(list)

Returns a list of strings for all the methods on the list class.

    dir([])

Will return a all the methods on a particular instance.

etc… the same caveats apply to dir with getattr etc as to method_missing. additional caveat i dont care to test; it may not work on an old style class instance.

help has its __repr__ defined to tell you how to use it. It will allow you to read the doc strings for a namespace, object or function. However i prefer to run 'pydoc -p 8888' in my projects top level; this will start an http server on port 8888 that lets you interactively browser your projects docstrings and all the modules on its pythonpath.

Hope that helps

[knowtheory]

Thanks :) that will be useful if i dig back into mucking around with Python.

[merijnv]

Better yet, use the help() function instead, which also displays the docstrings for said object and functions (assuming the programmer gave those, which fortunately holds for the entire stdlib).