How do I disable "missing docstring" warnings at a file-level in Pylint?

I came looking for an answer because, as cerin said, in Django projects it is cumbersome and redundant to add module docstrings to every one of the files that Django automatically generates when creating a new application.

So, as a workaround for the fact that Pylint doesn’t let you specify a difference in docstring types, you can do this:

pylint */*.py --msg-template='{path}: {C}:{line:3d},{column:2d}: {msg}' | grep docstring | grep -v module

You have to update the msg-template, so that when you grep you will still know the file name. This returns all the other missing-docstring types excluding modules.

Then you can fix all of those errors, and afterwards just run:

pylint */*.py --disable=missing-docstring

I think the fix is relative easy without disabling this feature.

def kos_root():
    """Return the pathname of the KOS root directory."""
    global _kos_root
    if _kos_root: return _kos_root

All you need to do is add the triple double quotes string in every function.

No. Pylint doesn’t currently let you discriminate between doc-string warnings.

However, you can use Flake8 for all Python code checking along with the doc-string extension to ignore this warning.

Install the doc-string extension with pip (internally, it uses pydocstyle).

pip install flake8_docstrings

You can then just use the --ignore D100 switch. For example, flake8 file.py --ignore D100

As mentioned by followben in the comments, a better solution is to just disable the rules that we want to disable rather than using --errors-only. This can be done with --disable=<msg ids>, -d <msg ids>.

The list of message IDs can be found here. For the specific error mentioned in the question, the message ID is C0111.

For using --disable= param in your choise of IDE or Text Editor, you will need to figure out how to do it.

For VS Code, this can be done by adding this in settings.json:

"python.linting.pylintArgs": ["--disable=C0111"]

With Pylint 2.4 and above you can differentiate between the various missing-docstring by using the three following sub-messages:

• C0114 (missing-module-docstring)
• C0115 (missing-class-docstring)
• C0116 (missing-function-docstring)

So the following .pylintrc file should work:

[MASTER]
disable=
    C0114, # missing-module-docstring

Edit file "C:UsersYour UserAppDataRoamingCodeUsersettings.json" and add these python.linting.pylintArgs lines at the end as shown below:

{
    "team.showWelcomeMessage": false,
    "python.dataScience.sendSelectionToInteractiveWindow": true,
    "git.enableSmartCommit": true,
    "powershell.codeFormatting.useCorrectCasing": true,
    "files.autoSave": "onWindowChange",
    "python.linting.pylintArgs": [
        "--load-plugins=pylint_django",
        "--errors-only"
    ],
}

Just put the following lines at the beginning of any file you want to disable these warnings for.

# pylint: disable=missing-module-docstring
# pylint: disable=missing-class-docstring
# pylint: disable=missing-function-docstring

1. Ctrl + Shift + P

2. Then type and click on > preferences:configure language specific settings

3. and then type "python" after that. Paste the code

    {
        "python.linting.pylintArgs": [
            "--load-plugins=pylint_django", "--errors-only"
        ],
    }
   

Go to file "settings.json" and disable the Python pydocstyle:

"python.linting.pydocstyleEnabled": false

In my case, with Pylint 2.6.0, the missing docstring messages wouldn’t disappear, even after explicitly disabling missing-module-docstring, missing-class-docstring and missing-function-docstring in my .pylintrc file. Finally, the following configuration worked for me:

[MESSAGES CONTROL]

disable=missing-docstring,empty-docstring

Apparently, Pylint 2.6.0 still validates docstrings unless both checks are disabled.

If you are a Visual Studio Code user who wants to ignore this, you can add python.linting.pylintArgs to .vscode/settings.json:

{
    ...
    "python.linting.pylintArgs": [
        "--disable=C0114",
        "--disable=C0115",
        "--disable=C0116",
    ],
    ...
}

I just wanted to add to what @Milovan Tomašević posted above. I decided to use python.linting.pylintArgs in VSCode’s global settings, as it was far more convenient than using a .pylintrc file.
Also, instead of using an ID for the switch (such as C0115), I used the symbolic names instead.

Full reference to Pylint options and switches is here.

{
    "python.linting.pylintArgs": [
        "--disable=missing-class-docstring",
        "--disable=missing-function-docstring"
    ]
}