#100DaysOfCode in Python Transcripts
Chapter: Days 61-63: Using the Github API with Python
Lecture: Quick detour: getting help in Python
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Let's look quickly how you can get help in Python.
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And some time ago we did an article
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describing the main functions you can use.
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So we have help, dir, combining them, pydoc.
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So let's see if we can use pydoc on the Github module.
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And to use an outside command in you Jupyter notebook
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you can use the ! or exclamation mark
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followed by the command.
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Right, I thought I mistyped a module,
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but doing it on the package and on the module name,
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the importer there is no Python documentation found.
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But not to worry, you can just use help on an object.
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For example, we just created pb, the get_user PyBites
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and I can now type help on pb, and look at that.
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It's a named user and it shows the class
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and the methods and even the URL to the Github API.
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So in the next example we want to see
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the get_repos in action.
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So I can just go to get_repos,
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see what it receives, see what it returns.
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And see the endpoint in the API.
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That's pretty useful.
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And another command is dir,
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you can use it like that, and here we see all the
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attributes on that object.
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So you see the dunder methods,
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the internal methods and the public interface.
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And now I know I can for example, get followers.
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How cool is that!
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Later we will see git gists, and look at how
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huge the API is, how many methods
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and attributes an object has.
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You can get a lot of data out of it.
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We can also just call help on a method like this.
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So we already saw this one before
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but instead of scrolling through the whole object or class
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we can just look at a single method.
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And that's all there is to the basics.
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I use this heavily when I was working with the API
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and let's look at a practical example next.