Get a module's docstring in Python without executing it.

gistfile1.py

import code 

def get_module_docstring(filepath):
    "Get module-level docstring of Python module at filepath, e.g. 'path/to/file.py'."
    co = compile(open(filepath).read(), filepath, 'exec')
    if co.co_consts and isinstance(co.co_consts[0], basestring):
        docstring = co.co_consts[0]
    else:
        docstring = None
    return docstring

My approach:

import ast

with open(filepath) as f:
    doc = ast.get_docstring(ast.parse(f.read()))