Documenting code with AI

AI-Assisted Coding for Developers

Francesca Donadoni

AI Curriculum Manager, DataCamp

AI-Powered docstring generation

User prompt: Write a docstring for this function

   def sales_trend(self):
       ...        
       if increasing > decreasing:
           return "Increasing trend"
       else:
           return "Decreasing or stable trend"

Model's response:

 def sales_trend(self):
     """Analyze sales data to determine the overall trend"""
     [...]

AI-Powered docstring generation

User prompt: Generate a docstring for this function that includes:
- A simple explanation of what the function does.
- A description of each parameter and its type.
- A description of the return value and its type.
Model's response:

Here's a complete docstring you can use for your function:

def sales_trend(self):
    """
    Analyze the sales data to determine whether there is an increasing trend 
    or a decreasing/stable trend over time.
    [...]
    """

AI-Powered docstring generation

Here's a complete docstring you can use for your function:

def sales_trend(self):
    """
    Analyze the sales data to determine whether there is an increasing trend 
    or a decreasing/stable trend over time.

    Parameters
    ----------
    self : object
        An object that contains an attribute `daily_sales` (list of int or float),
        which represents daily sales values in chronological order.
    [...]
    """

Adapting to documentation styles

Summarizing code into READMEs

User prompt: Generate a README file in Markdown that explains the SalesAnalyzer class and its methods. Include a sample code snippet to help users analyze the sales trend over a random period.

Model's response:

Here's a polished README.md draft for your SalesAnalyzer class:

SalesAnalyzer

The SalesAnalyzer class provides a simple way to analyze daily sales data and detect whether the sales trend is generally increasing or decreasing/stable. This tool can be useful for businesses or individuals who want a quick, high-level overview of their sales performance over time.

Commit messages from code diffs

User prompt: Write a meaningful commit message given this git diff:

(base) datacamp@test:~/datacamp/docstring-generation$ git diff
+
+        Raises:
+            ValueError: If daily_sales contains non-numeric values.
         """
-        return sum(self.daily_sales)
+        if not all(isinstance(sale, (int, float)) for sale in self.daily_sales):
+            raise ValueError("All sales figures must be numeric.")
+        return sum(sale for sale in self.daily_sales)

Automating release notes

Other use cases

Let's practice!

AI-Assisted Coding for Developers