Appending to inherited method docstring

Question

I'm trying to define a subclass that only changes the __init__ method, that change will change the behavior of some of the methods and I wanted to be able to update the docstrings accordingly. I have been trying something like this:

class ParentClass:

    def __init__(self):
        """Init docstring"""
        self.x = 1

    def return_x(self):
        """Will return 1"""
        return self.x

class ChildClass(ParentClass):

    def __init__(self):
        self.x = 2

ChildClass.return_x.__doc__ = "Will return 2"

However, by doing this I change the docstring for the return_x method in the parent class as well:

>>> x = ParentClass()
>>> help(x.return_x)
    "Will return 2 now"
>>> x = ChildClass()
>>> help(x.return_x)
    "Will return 2 now"

I tried other variations to this, but it either led to an error or changed the Parent Class docstring as well. Is there any simple way that I can change the child class docstring without having to redefine the method?

Edit 1 , In response to @Anonymous12358 comment:

My intention in not needing to redefine the method is to avoid repetition of a complicated method signature and a relatively long documentation. In my real case the change to the documentation can be made by simply appending a sentence to the end of the original documentation. So I'm looking for an implementation similar to:

ChildClass.return_x.__doc__ += "\n Appended sentence to the doc"

Answer 1

You could override the return_x method in the child class with an explicit foward to the super , and write a docstring for the override:

class ChildClass(ParentClass):
    ...
    def return_x(self):
        """Will return 2"""
        return super().return_x()

The subclass will still always have the same behaviour as its parent, but now has its own version of the method and therefore its own docstring.