Skip to content

docstring-starts-with-this (D404)

Derived from the pydocstyle linter.

What it does

Checks for docstrings that start with This.

Why is this bad?

PEP 257 recommends that the first line of a docstring be written in the imperative mood, for consistency.

Hint: to rewrite the docstring in the imperative, phrase the first line as if it were a command.

This rule may not apply to all projects; its applicability is a matter of convention. By default, this rule is enabled when using the numpy convention,, and disabled when using the google and pep257 conventions.

Example

def average(values: list[float]) -> float:
    """This function returns the mean of the given values."""

Use instead:

def average(values: list[float]) -> float:
    """Return the mean of the given values."""

Options

References