On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 5:31 AM, Steve Barnes <gadgetsteve@live.co.uk> wrote:

I see it as showing that the information is already available to anybody
who needs it so I question the usefulness of changing repr (for
everybody)
@dataclass
class C:
a: "the a parameter" # field with no default
b: "another, different parameter" = 0.0 # field with a default
.

well, digging into inspect and all that is definitely an advanced process -- repr is for a quick look-see at the value of an object -- it would be great to have one that was more informative.

and in theory, the "goal" is for eval(repr(obj)) to return an equivelent object -- surely that would require showing the arguments and expression, yes?

But is it bound to break somethign somewhere? given how, well, useless the current lambda repr is, I can't imagine much breaking. But then I"ve been known to lack imagination :-)

As for "proper" functions, I think it's pretty much off the table -- they are simply too often complicated beasts with lots of parameters, lots of code, multiple return possibilities, etc.

Is there a downside other than possible breakage? Performance issue, maybe?

And with regards to breakage -- anyone have code that would break (yeah, I know, small sample, but if the answer is yes, lots, then we're done)

-Chris

Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer

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