#9364: Improve the text printed by help(pydoc) and help(help).

2 files changed, 9 insertions, 4 deletions

diff --git a/Lib/_sitebuiltins.py b/Lib/_sitebuiltins.py
index 1f21358e26..c29cf4bf8f 100644
--- a/Lib/_sitebuiltins.py
+++ b/Lib/_sitebuiltins.py
@@ -87,8 +87,12 @@ class _Printer(object):
 
 class _Helper(object):
     """Define the builtin 'help'.
-    This is a wrapper around pydoc.help (with a twist).
 
+    This is a wrapper around pydoc.help that provides a helpful message
+    when 'help' is typed at the Python interactive prompt.
+
+    Calling help() at the Python prompt starts an interactive help session.
+    Calling help(thing) prints help for the python object 'thing'.
     """
 
     def __repr__(self):
diff --git a/Lib/pydoc.py b/Lib/pydoc.py
index 006212b32e..5f128320d2 100755
--- a/Lib/pydoc.py
+++ b/Lib/pydoc.py
@@ -1,8 +1,9 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env python3
 """Generate Python documentation in HTML or text for interactive use.
 
-In the Python interpreter, do "from pydoc import help" to provide
-help.  Calling help(thing) on a Python object documents the object.
+At the Python interactive prompt, calling help(thing) on a Python object
+documents the object, and calling help() starts up an interactive
+help session.
 
 Or, at the shell command line outside of Python:
 
@@ -1865,7 +1866,7 @@ has the same effect as typing a particular string at the help> prompt.
 
     def intro(self):
         self.output.write('''
-Welcome to Python %s!  This is the interactive help utility.
+Welcome to Python %s's help utility!
 
 If this is your first time using Python, you should definitely check out
 the tutorial on the Internet at http://docs.python.org/%s/tutorial/.