How to use a long string as a descriptive docstring for a number of functions

Question

I have created a util python file that contains many functions in it. I want to use a long string to be used as a descriptive docstring for some of them, which can be shown with help(functionname). Is it possible to write the string just one time and use it for the desired functions (by referring that string from within the functions) as it can be shown with help?

For example (the main docstring is a long multiline string, here is just as an example):

longstring = """ It is the description """

def hello_():
    longstring
    return 'hello'

def by_():
    longstring
    return 'by'

# help(hello_) shows the longstring

I used a code similar to above, but that doesn't show that docstring.

Answer 1

You can try function.__doc__ = "some string", but note this only works with functions.