[Tim]
Note that transforming
{EXPR!d:FMT}
into
EXPR={repr(EXPR):FMT}
is actually slightly more involved than transforming it into
EXPR={EXPR:FMT}
so I don't buy the argument that the original idea is simpler. More magical and less useful, yes ;-)
[Eric V. Smith]
Actually, my proposal is to apply FMT to the entire result of
EXPR={repr(EXPR)}, not just the repr(EXPR) part. I'm not sure either is
particularly useful.
So the actual transformation is from {EXPR!d:FMT} to {"EXPR=" + repr(EXPR):FMT} I expect I'll barely use "!d" at all if the format doesn't apply to the result of EXPR, so I have no non-contrived ;-) opinion about that. BTW, I checked, and I've never used !r, !s, or !a. So the idea that the format could apply to a string - when EXPR itself doesn't evaluate to a string - is simply foreign to me. I suppose it's natural to people who do use ![rsa] all the time - if such people exist ;-)