Okay, I'm having one of those moments that makes me question my ability to use a computer. This is not the sort of question I imagined asking as my first SO post, but here goes.

Started on Zed's new "Learn Python the Hard Way" since I've been looking to get back into programming after a 10 year hiatus and python was always what I wanted. This book has really spoken to me. That being said, I'm having a serious issue with pydoc from the command. I've got all the directories in c:/python26 in my system path and I can execute pydoc from the command line just fine regardless of pwd - but it accepts no arguments. Doesn't matter what I type, I just get the standard pydoc output telling me the acceptable arguments.

Any ideas? For what it's worth, I installed ActivePython as per Zed's suggestion.

C:\Users\Chevee>pydoc file
pydoc - the Python documentation tool

pydoc.py <name> ...
    Show text documentation on something.  <name> may be the name of a
    Python keyword, topic, function, module, or package, or a dotted
    reference to a class or function within a module or module in a
    package.  If <name> contains a '\', it is used as the path to a
    Python source file to document. If name is 'keywords', 'topics',
    or 'modules', a listing of these things is displayed.

pydoc.py -k <keyword>
    Search for a keyword in the synopsis lines of all available modules.

pydoc.py -p <port>
    Start an HTTP server on the given port on the local machine.

pydoc.py -g
    Pop up a graphical interface for finding and serving documentation.

pydoc.py -w <name> ...
    Write out the HTML documentation for a module to a file in the current
    directory.  If <name> contains a '\', it is treated as a filename; if
    it names a directory, documentation is written for all the contents.


C:\Users\Chevee>

EDIT: New information, pydoc works just fine in PowerShell. As a linux user, I have no idea why I'm trying to use cmd anyways--but I'd still love to figure out what's up with pydoc and cmd.

EDIT 2: More new information. In cmd...

c:\>python c:/python26/lib/pydoc.py file

...works just fine. Everything works just fine with just pydoc in PowerShell without me worrying about pwd, or extensions or paths.