The idea of a docstring is nothing new (Java, Python), yet Power Query does not offer any simple convention for documenting your code. There is a way to view function documentation in user interface, but adding documentation to custom functions is not exactly a straightforward process (see Microsoft documentation or blog posts by Imke Feldman and Lars Schreiber).
LibPQ enables support for basic docstrings in source code modules. It will automatically convert these docstrings into correct metadata that will be visible from Power Query / PowerBI user interface.
A docstring for LibPQ is a comment that meets the following requirements:
- Docstring must be written as a delimited comment (enclosed in
/*and*/). - Docstring must be placed at the top of the source code module. There must be no code or comments before the docstring.
- There must be no nested delimited comments inside the docstring.
Such comments will be automatically converted into proper metadata by LibPQ and will become available via user interface. See example below.
This is a demo module HelloWorld.pq:
/*
Hello world function (demo of LibPQ docstrings)
Multiline docstrings are supported
There is also support for <i>basic <b>HTML</b></i> formatting (implemented by
Power Query / PowerBI itself, this is not a LibPQ feature)
LibPQ will also add information about the location of source code for this
module, see below.
*/
(hello) => hello & " world!"It will be shown in the UI like this:
