nosetesting modules for adherance to numpydoc docstring standards?

Copied from https://github.com/numpy/numpy/issues/2778

@rmcgibbo

I've always thought it would be cool to automatically to automatically validate (at least in a minimal way) my docstrings during build testing. (Because of issues like this, its not going to be perfect, but whatever.)

Well, I went ahead and did it. I'm wondering if there's any interest in the numpy community for adding this feature into the numpydoc codebase.

With code like this in the test suite:

# test.py
from numpydoc import DocStringFormatTester
import my_module_to_be_tested
TestDocstrings = DocStringFormatTester(my_module_to_be_tested)
[... rest of your test suite ...]

you get behavior like:

$ nosetests
[... your regular test results ...]
NumpyDoc: mymodule.function1 ... ok
NumpyDoc: mymodule.function2 ... ok
NumpyDoc: mymodule.class1.method1 ... ok
NumpyDoc: mymodule.class1.method2 ... ok

The mechanism is just a class factory that builds classes with names like "Test_XXX" so that they get discovered by nose. Perhaps it could be done more cleverly with a nose extension.

If there's any interest in this (Perhaps it's outside the scope of numpy/numpydoc) I will write it up for a PR.

Start by reviewing the proposed DocStringFormatTester factory and its nose discovery examples, then inspect the current numpydoc codebase and test setup. Clarify the intended integration and acceptance checks with maintainers; done means documented, working docstring validation is exercised by the test runner.