How do I export the output of Python's built-in help() function

Question

I've got a python package which outputs considerable help text from: help(package)

I would like to export this help text to a file, in the format in which it's displayed by help(package)

How might I go about this?

Answer 1

This is a bit hackish (and there's probably a better solution somewhere), but this works:

import sys
import pydoc

def output_help_to_file(filepath, request):
    f = open(filepath, 'w')
    sys.stdout = f
    pydoc.help(request)
    f.close()
    sys.stdout = sys.__stdout__
    return

And then...

>>> output_help_to_file(r'test.txt', 're')