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no-blank-line-before-section (D411)#

Derived from the pydocstyle linter.

Fix is always available.

What it does#

Checks for docstring sections that are separated by a blank line.

Why is this bad?#

Multi-line docstrings are typically composed of a summary line, followed by a blank line, followed by a series of sections, each with a section header and a section body.

Docstring sections should be separated by a blank line, for consistency and compatibility with documentation tooling.

This rule is enabled when using the numpy and google conventions, and disabled when using the pep257 convention.

Example#

def calculate_speed(distance: float, time: float) -> float:
    """Calculate speed as distance divided by time.

    Parameters
    ----------
    distance : float
        Distance traveled.
    time : float
        Time spent traveling.
    Returns
    -------
    float
        Speed as distance divided by time.
    Raises
    ------
    FasterThanLightError
        If speed is greater than the speed of light.
    """
    try:
        return distance / time
    except ZeroDivisionError as exc:
        raise FasterThanLightError from exc

Use instead: 

def calculate_speed(distance: float, time: float) -> float:
    """Calculate speed as distance divided by time.

    Parameters
    ----------
    distance : float
        Distance traveled.
    time : float
        Time spent traveling.

    Returns
    -------
    float
        Speed as distance divided by time.

    Raises
    ------
    FasterThanLightError
        If speed is greater than the speed of light.
    """
    try:
        return distance / time
    except ZeroDivisionError as exc:
        raise FasterThanLightError from exc

Options#

References#