---
name: "docformatter"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "python3-docformatter"
version: "1.7.5-4"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/docformatter"
---

# docformatter(1)

Formats docstrings to follow Python PEP 257 (Documentation)

## NAME

docformatter -  Formats docstrings to follow Python PEP 257 (Documentation)

## DESCRIPTION

usage: docformatter \[-h\] \[-i \| **-c\]** \[-d\] \[-r\] \[-e \[EXCLUDE ...\]\]

- \[-n \[NON-CAP ...\]\] \[-s \[style\]\] \[--rest-section-adorns REGEX\]

  \[--black\] \[--wrap-summaries length\] \[--wrap-descriptions length\] \[--force-wrap\] \[--tab-width width\] \[--blank\] \[--pre-summary-newline\] \[--pre-summary-space\] \[--make-summary-multi-line\] \[--close-quotes-on-newline\] \[--range line line\] \[--docstring-length length length\] \[--non-strict\] \[--config CONFIG\] \[--version\] files \[files ...\]

### positional arguments:

- files

  files to format or '-' for standard in

### options:

- **-h**, **--help**

  show this help message and exit

- **-i**, **--in-place**

  make changes to files instead of printing diffs

- **-c**, **--check**

  only check and report incorrectly formatted files

- **-d**, **--diff**

  when used with \`--check\` or \`--in-place\`, also what changes would be made

- **-r**, **--recursive**

  drill down directories recursively

- **-e** \[EXCLUDE ...\], **--exclude** \[EXCLUDE ...\]

  in recursive mode, exclude directories and files by names

- **-n** \[NON-CAP ...\], **--non-cap** \[NON-CAP ...\]

  list of words not to capitalize when they appear as the first word in the summary

- **-s** style, **--style** style

  the docstring style to use when formatting parameter lists.  One of epytext, sphinx. (default: sphinx)

- **--rest-section-adorns** REGEX

  regular expression for identifying reST section adornments (default: \[!"#$%&'()\*+,-./\\:;\<=\>?@\[\]^\_\`{\|}~\]{4,})

- **--black**

  make formatting compatible with standard black options (default: False)

- **--wrap-summaries** length

  wrap long summary lines at this length; set to 0 to disable wrapping (default: 79, 88 with **--black** option)

- **--wrap-descriptions** length

  wrap descriptions at this length; set to 0 to disable wrapping (default: 72, 88 with **--black** option)

- **--force-wrap**

  force descriptions to be wrapped even if it may result in a mess (default: False)

- **--tab-width** width

  tabs in indentation are this many characters when wrapping lines (default: 1)

- **--blank**

  add blank line after description (default: False)

- **--pre-summary-newline**

  add a newline before the summary of a multi-line docstring (default: False)

- **--pre-summary-space**

  add a space after the opening triple quotes (default: False)

- **--make-summary-multi-line**

  add a newline before and after the summary of a one-line docstring (default: False)

- **--close-quotes-on-newline**

  place closing triple quotes on a new-line when a one-line docstring wraps to two or more lines (default: False)

- **--range** line line

  apply docformatter to docstrings between these lines; line numbers are indexed at 1 (default: None)

- **--docstring-length** length length

  apply docformatter to docstrings of given length range (default: None)

- **--non-strict**

  don't strictly follow reST syntax to identify lists (see issue #67) (default: False)

- **--config** CONFIG

  path to file containing docformatter options

- **--version**

  show program's version number and exit