Documentation for `functools.partial()` refers to `partial()` where it should refer to `partial object`

[richytong]

Documentation

If partial() is applied to an existing partial() object, Placeholder sentinels of the input object are filled in with new positional arguments. A placeholder can be retained by inserting a new Placeholder sentinel to the place held by a previous Placeholder:

should be

If partial is applied to an existing partial() object, Placeholder sentinels of the input object are filled in with new positional arguments. A placeholder can be retained by inserting a new Placeholder sentinel to the place held by a previous Placeholder:

Linked PRs

• gh-155013: Reword a reference to partial object in functools #155036

[shellsri]

hey @richytong im new to this repo and I would like to contribute and work on this issue could you please assign it to me..

[shellsri]

Hi @richytong! I checked the latest main branch and couldn't reproduce this issue.

The current source in Doc/library/functools.rst already reads:

If :func:`!partial` is applied to an existing :func:`!partial` object,

So it looks like the source already contains the change. Is this issue referring to the published documentation rather than the current main branch or could you tell me in which file the issue is?

[sirosen]

The only difference I see in the cited text is a pair of parens, which look appropriately placed to me for a function reference.

If there really is an improvement to be made, it needs a clearer description.

[StanFromIreland]

We don’t need to mark things that aren’t spam as invalid.

[richytong]

partial() refers to the function object returned by partial, whereas partial refers to the partial function that is applied to a function object, that can be applied to an existing function object. partial() cannot be applied to an existing function object.

[sirosen]

I think you're assigning more meaning to the trailing parentheses than is appropriate, but it's hard for me to be sure that I'm getting your meaning. (Use backticks to code quote text like partial(), that will help.)

:func:`partial` should be used for references to functools.partial, and will include the trailing parentheses. That is correct, as it's how any reference to a function appears in the docs.

The second reference to partial() in the sentence that you quoted might be improved by making it a reference to the definition of a partial object. That's used at the start of the doc for partial() as well:

cpython/Doc/library/functools.rst

Line 344 in afd10f0

Return a new :ref:`partial object<partial-objects>` which when called

I can put up a small PR for this, so I'll reopen. (I closed because the presentation of the issue was sufficiently hard for me to understand that I thought it might be spam, sorry!)