Pitch: Documentation access from the Swift REPL

Roope_Kangas · June 9, 2017, 5:40am

I am new to Swift and just started learning but...

When exploring standard library and the language it self from the REPL.
Users currently need to switch between a browser to read documentation and
the
REPL it self.

What I would like to see in the REPL is behaviour like this:

1> :help print

print(_:separator:terminator:)
Writes the textual representations of the given items into the standard
output.

...

This means some kind of nice textual version of what I find here:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift/1541053-print

I see that in the source code this information is available
(

github.com

apple/swift/blob/main/stdlib/public/core/Print.swift#L13


      
          // This source file is part of the Swift.org open source project
          //
          // Copyright (c) 2014 - 2017 Apple Inc. and the Swift project authors
          // Licensed under Apache License v2.0 with Runtime Library Exception
          //
          // See https://swift.org/LICENSE.txt for license information
          // See https://swift.org/CONTRIBUTORS.txt for the list of Swift project authors
          //
          //===----------------------------------------------------------------------===//
          
          
#if !SWIFT_STDLIB_STATIC_PRINT
          
          
/// Writes the textual representations of the given items into the standard
          /// output.
          ///
          /// You can pass zero or more items to the `print(_:separator:terminator:)`
          /// function. The textual representation for each item is the same as that
          /// obtained by calling `String(item)`. The following example prints a string,
          /// a closed range of integers, and a group of floating-point values to
          /// standard output:
          ///

).

And that in the playgrounds I can get this quick help. Would be really nice
to access this from the REPL too.

KR,

···

--
Roope Kangas
http://fi.linkedin.com/in/roopekangas

Beta · June 30, 2017, 6:16pm

Because this is a REPL change not a language change I recommend you report this as an enhancement request in a radar.

~Robert Widmann

···

On Jun 8, 2017, at 10:40 PM, Roope Kangas via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

I am new to Swift and just started learning but...

When exploring standard library and the language it self from the REPL.
Users currently need to switch between a browser to read documentation and the
REPL it self.

What I would like to see in the REPL is behaviour like this:

1> :help print

   print(_:separator:terminator:)
   Writes the textual representations of the given items into the standard output.

   ...

This means some kind of nice textual version of what I find here:
print(_:separator:terminator:) | Apple Developer Documentation

I see that in the source code this information is available
(https://github.com/apple/swift/blob/master/stdlib/public/core/Print.swift#L13\).

And that in the playgrounds I can get this quick help. Would be really nice
to access this from the REPL too.

KR,

--
Roope Kangas
http://fi.linkedin.com/in/roopekangas_______________________________________________
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