title: Windows 7 - pydoc from cmd
body: <p>Okay, I'm having one of those moments that makes me question my ability to use a computer.  This is not the sort of question I imagined asking as my first SO post, but here goes.</p>
  
  <p>Started on Zed's new "Learn Python the Hard Way" since I've been looking to get back into programming after a 10 year hiatus and python was always what I wanted.  This book has really spoken to me.  That being said, I'm having a serious issue with pydoc from the command.  I've got all the directories in c:/python26 in my system path and I can execute pydoc from the command line just fine regardless of pwd - but it accepts no arguments.  Doesn't matter what I type, I just get the standard pydoc output telling me the acceptable arguments.  </p>
  
  <p>Any ideas?  For what it's worth, I installed ActivePython as per Zed's suggestion.</p>
  
  <pre><code>C:\Users\Chevee&gt;pydoc file
  pydoc - the Python documentation tool
  
  pydoc.py &lt;name&gt; ...
      Show text documentation on something.  &lt;name&gt; may be the name of a
      Python keyword, topic, function, module, or package, or a dotted
      reference to a class or function within a module or module in a
      package.  If &lt;name&gt; contains a '\', it is used as the path to a
      Python source file to document. If name is 'keywords', 'topics',
      or 'modules', a listing of these things is displayed.
  
  pydoc.py -k &lt;keyword&gt;
      Search for a keyword in the synopsis lines of all available modules.
  
  pydoc.py -p &lt;port&gt;
      Start an HTTP server on the given port on the local machine.
  
  pydoc.py -g
      Pop up a graphical interface for finding and serving documentation.
  
  pydoc.py -w &lt;name&gt; ...
      Write out the HTML documentation for a module to a file in the current
      directory.  If &lt;name&gt; contains a '\', it is treated as a filename; if
      it names a directory, documentation is written for all the contents.
  
  
  C:\Users\Chevee&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>EDIT:  New information, pydoc  works just fine in PowerShell.  As a linux user, I have no idea why I'm trying to use cmd anyways--but I'd still love to figure out what's up with pydoc and cmd.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT 2:  More new information.  In cmd...</p>
  
  <pre><code>c:\&gt;python c:/python26/lib/pydoc.py file
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>...works just fine.  Everything works just fine with just pydoc in PowerShell without me worrying about pwd, or extensions or paths.</p>