I was planning to submit a patch that adds the built-in routines
sys.display sys.displaytb
sys.__display__ sys.__displaytb__
sys.display(obj) would be implemented as 'print repr(obj)' and sys.displaytb(tb, exc) would call the same built-in traceback printer we all know and love.
Sure. Though I would recommend to separate the patch in two parts, because their implementation is totally unrelated.
I assumed that sys.__stdin__ was added to make it easier to restore sys.stdin to its original value. In the same vein, sys.__display__ and sys.__displaytb__ would be saved references to the original sys.display and sys.displaytb.
Good idea.
I hate to contradict Guido, but i'll gently suggest why i like "display" better than "displayhook": "display" is a verb, and i prefer function names to be verbs rather than nouns describing what the functions are (e.g. "read" rather than "reader", etc.)
Good idea. But I hate the "displaytb" name (when I read your message I had no idea what the "tb" stood for until you explained it). Hm, perhaps we could do showvalue and showtraceback? ("displaytraceback" is a bit long.) --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)