Confused about __str__ on list in Python [duplicate]

Solution 1:

Python has two different ways to convert an object to a string: str() and repr(). Printing an object uses str(); printing a list containing an object uses str() for the list itself, but the implementation of list.__str__() calls repr() for the individual items.

So you should also overwrite __repr__(). A simple

__repr__ = __str__

at the end of the class body will do the trick.

Solution 2:

Because of the infinite superiority of Python over Java, Python has not one, but two toString operations.

One is __str__, the other is __repr__

__str__ will return a human readable string. __repr__ will return an internal representation.

__repr__ can be invoked on an object by calling repr(obj) or by using backticks `obj`.

When printing lists as well as other container classes, the contained elements will be printed using __repr__.

Solution 3:

It provides human readable version of output rather "Object": Example:

class Pet(object):

    def __init__(self, name, species):
        self.name = name
        self.species = species

    def getName(self):
        return self.name

    def getSpecies(self):
        return self.species

    def Norm(self):
        return "%s is a %s" % (self.name, self.species)

if __name__=='__main__':
    a = Pet("jax", "human")
    print a 

returns

<__main__.Pet object at 0x029E2F90>

while code with "str" return something different

class Pet(object):

    def __init__(self, name, species):
        self.name = name
        self.species = species

    def getName(self):
        return self.name

    def getSpecies(self):
        return self.species

    def __str__(self):
        return "%s is a %s" % (self.name, self.species)

if __name__=='__main__':
    a = Pet("jax", "human")
    print a 

returns:

jax is a human

Solution 4:

Answer to the question

As pointed out in another answer and as you can read in PEP 3140, str on a list calls for each item __repr__. There is not much you can do about that part.

If you implement __repr__, you will get something more descriptive, but if implemented correctly, not exactly what you expected.

Proper implementation

The fast, but wrong solution is to alias __repr__ to __str__.

__repr__ should not be set to __str__ unconditionally. __repr__ should create a representation, that should look like a valid Python expression that could be used to recreate an object with the same value. In this case, this would rather be Node(2) than 2.

A proper implementation of __repr__ makes it possible to recreate the object. In this example, it should also contain the other significant members, like neighours and distance.

An incomplete example:

class Node:

    def __init__(self, id, neighbours=[], distance=0):
        self.id = id
        self.neighbours = neighbours
        self.distance = distance


    def __str__(self):
        return str(self.id)


    def __repr__(self):
        return "Node(id={0.id}, neighbours={0.neighbours!r}, distance={0.distance})".format(self)
        # in an elaborate implementation, members that have the default
        # value could be left out, but this would hide some information


uno = Node(1)    
due = Node(2)    
tri = Node(3)    
qua = Node(4)

print uno
print str(uno)
print repr(uno)

uno.neighbours.append([[due, 4], [tri, 5]])

print uno
print uno.neighbours
print repr(uno)

Note: print repr(uno) together with a proper implementation of __eq__ and __ne__ or __cmp__ would allow to recreate the object and check for equality.