Why is help(activeLayer()) not working?

Question

Why are neither of the commands below returning details on the active layer method?

It works when I use the class iface.

help(activeLayer)
help(activeLayer()) 

This is the error I get

Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\PROGRA~1\QGIS32~1.1\apps\Python39\lib\code.py", line 90, in runcode exec(code, self.locals) File "", line 1, in NameError: name 'activeLayer' is not defined

Answer 1

This is because Python doesn't have activeLayer imported into the current namespace, so it can't find it. Its not just the help that doesn't work, nothing will find activeLayer:

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It finds iface because that is imported for you.

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You can do dir() to see what is imported. You can do dir(iface) to see what the iface object has for you.

So to get the help on the activeLayer object, you can do help(iface.activeLayer) since activeLayer is a property of iface and iface is imported.

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• Chace Carpenter: Thanks that helped allot
• Kadir Şahbaz: @ChaceCarpenter If you like the answer and it was helpful, please consider upvoting by clicking on the arrows next to the score and/or marking it as the accepted answer by clicking on the checkmark ✓.