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section-name-ends-in-colon (D416)#

Derived from the pydocstyle linter.

Fix is always available.

What it does#

Checks for docstring section headers that do not end with a colon.

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.

In a docstring, each section header should end with a colon, for consistency.

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

Example#

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

    Args
        distance: Distance traveled.
        time: Time spent traveling.

    Returns
        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.

    Args:
        distance: Distance traveled.
        time: Time spent traveling.

    Returns:
        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#