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pydoc help() lists related topics that do not exist (FILES, unicode) #161415

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@andresdelfino

Bug report

Bug description:

The "Related help topics" lists of two help() topics name entries that do not exist:

>>> help('TYPES')
...
Related help topics: STRINGS, UNICODE, NUMBERS, SEQUENCES, MAPPINGS,
FUNCTIONS, CLASSES, MODULES, FILES, inspect

>>> help('FILES')
No help entry found for 'FILES'.
...
>>> help('UNICODE')
...
Related help topics: encodings, unicode, SEQUENCES, STRINGMETHODS,
FORMATTING, TYPES

>>> help('unicode')
No help entry found for 'unicode'.
...

The FILES topic was removed from pydoc.Helper.topics in Python 3.4 because its documentation no longer exists (gh-63118), but the cross-reference from TYPES was kept. unicode refers to the Python 2 built-in type, which does not exist in Python 3.

Every other related topic of the help() topics and keywords is a topic, keyword, symbol, or an object that help() can document, so these two entries can be removed.

CPython versions tested on:

3.12, CPython main branch

Operating systems tested on:

Linux

Linked PRs

Activity

  1. added
    type-bugAn unexpected behavior, bug, or error
    stdlibStandard Library Python modules in the Lib/ directory
    on Nov 5, 2026
  2. added a commit that references this issue on Nov 5, 2026
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    stdlibStandard Library Python modules in the Lib/ directorytype-bugAn unexpected behavior, bug, or error

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