Probably not ideal, but maybe you could use a decorator to extend the docstring. For example:
class extend_docstring:
def __init__(self, method):
self.doc = method.__doc__
def __call__(self, function):
if self.doc is not None:
doc = function.__doc__
function.__doc__ = self.doc
if doc is not None:
function.__doc__ += doc
return function
class BaseClass:
def mymethod(myargument):
"""This does something
Params
------
myargument : int
Description of the argument
"""
[...]
class MyClass1(BaseClass):
@extend_docstring(BaseClass.mymethod)
def mymethod(myargument):
BaseClass.mymethod(myargument)
[...]
class MyClass2(BaseClass):
@extend_docstring(MyClass1.mymethod)
def mymethod(myargument, argument2):
"""argument2 : int
Description of the additional argument
"""
BaseClass.mymethod(argument)
[...]
print('---BaseClass.mymethod---')
print(BaseClass.mymethod.__doc__)
print('---MyClass1.mymethod---')
print(MyClass1.mymethod.__doc__)
print('---MyClass2.mymethod---')
print(MyClass2.mymethod.__doc__)
Result:
---BaseClass.mymethod---
This does something
Params
------
myargument : int
Description of the argument
---MyClass1.mymethod---
This does something
Params
------
myargument : int
Description of the argument
---MyClass2.mymethod---
This does something
Params
------
myargument : int
Description of the argument
argument2 : int
Description of the additional argument
The override method could be resolved dynamically if you make the decorator a descriptor and search for it into __get__ but that means the decorator is no longer stackable as it doesn't return the real function.