Issue 16508: include the "object" type in the lists of documented types

This issue is to add the "object" type to the list of types documented in the language reference's standard type hierarchy and the library reference's list of built-in types:

http://docs.python.org/dev/reference/datamodel.html#the-standard-type-hierarchy
http://docs.python.org/dev/library/stdtypes.html#other-built-in-types

The constructor is documented here:

http://docs.python.org/dev/library/functions.html#object

In the documentation, it might also be worth stating explicitly which of the special methods the object type defines:

http://docs.python.org/dev/reference/datamodel.html#special-method-names

For example, object.__str__ is defined, but object.__bytes__ is not.  By doing this, users will know which special methods user-defined classes will automatically inherit.

good idea

I think there was another issue discussing a separation between object.__str__ and someobject.__bytes__, to make it clear which are existing methods of the object class and which are methods that one may implement in their classes.

Doing this is going to be a bit tricky, since currently links like :meth:`object.__format__` go to the special methods section.  So I think making the distinction between available special methods and ones that object implements will need to be done at the same time as this, and there may be quite a few places in the documentation where reference will need to be changed.

What does not help is that help(ob) omits all the methods inherited from object, *even when ob is object*.  See #20285.

Here is a patch. Perhaps it is what you had in mind. I added quick mentions of the “object” class to The Standard Type Hierarchy and Other Built-in Types. I added documentation of what the object class’s own implementations do where it provides them. I added sentences pointing out that other methods are not provided by the object class, where I thought it may not already be clear. I also added a test case to check that various methods exist or not, to match the documentation.

versions: + Python 3.5, Python 3.6, - Python 3.3
keywords: + patch
nosy: + martin.panter

messages: + msg247663
stage: needs patch -> patch review