problem with help(type(self)) in Idle

[akbarza]

hi
I use idle for Python learning.
in idle i wrote help(type) and then appeared a text that contained somethings as mro(self, / ) or __sizeof__(self, / ) and ... .
what is the meaning of self and / ?
also, there was in the result of the above command :

__init__(self, /, *args,**kwargs)
Initialize self. see help(type(self) for accurate signature.

then I typed

help(type(self))

in idle, but i got an error as:

Error:
...
NameError: name 'self' is not defined.

what is the problem?
thanks for any guidance.

[Gribouillis]

For the meaning of slash and asterisk in function paremeters, you could read this

self is the name usually given to the implicit object occuring in methods definitions in a class.

I think the meaning of the help message that you got is that in order to get help about the __init__ method of an object, you should read the help of the type of the object. For example with a string

>>> foo = 'some string'
>>> help(foo)
No Python documentation found for 'some string'.
Use help() to get the interactive help utility.
Use help(str) for help on the str class.

>>> help(type(foo))  # this gives me help about the type of foo which is str, and the help includes details about how to initialize a str instance
...