Ticket #573: pydoc.diff

xapian-bindings/python/Makefile.am

@@ -57 +57 @@
 # versions so we can't let the .pyc and .pyo files get written there.  Hence we
 # copy the .py file to the build directory from wherever it actually is and use
 # the copy.  We also rename the copy to __init__.py so that it can be installed
-# in a "xapian" directory and be treated as a package.
+# in a "xapian" directory and be treated as a package. Finally, we take this
+# opportunity to drop a module doc string at the top of the file.
 xapian/__init__.py: modern/xapian.py
         -test -d xapian || mkdir xapian
-        cp `test -f modern/xapian.py || echo '$(srcdir)/'`modern/xapian.py xapian/__init__.py
+        cp $(srcdir)/module_top.py xapian/__init__.py
+        cat `test -f modern/xapian.py || echo '$(srcdir)/'`modern/xapian.py >> xapian/__init__.py
 
 # We "import _xapian" first so that if we fail to import the glue library
 # we don't generate a broken __init__.pyc or __init__.pyo.

new file xapian-bindings/python/module_top.py

@@ +1 @@
+"""
+Xapian is a highly adaptable toolkit which allows developers to easily
+add advanced indexing and search facilities to their own
+applications. It supports the Probabilistic Information Retrieval
+model and also supports a rich set of boolean query operators.
+
+In addition to the doc strings provided by this python library, you
+may wish to look at the library's overall documentation, either
+installed along with the bindings or online at
+<http://xapian.org/docs/bindings/python/>, as well as the library's
+documentation, possibly installed with the library or with its
+development files, or again online at <http://xapian.org/docs/>.
+"""