[Python-Dev] str(1L) -> '1' ?

[Guido van Rossum]

[Jim F]
> In November there was an interesting discussion on comp.lang.python 
> about the meaning of __str__ and __repr__.  One tidbit that came out
> of this discussion was that __str__ for longs should drop the trailing 
> 'L'. Was there a decision on this? I'd really like this to happen.

Yes, I'd like it to happen.  I'd also like repr() of a float to return
the full precision (using the "%.17g" sprintf format).

I haven't done it for lack of time -- feel free to send a patch (don't
forget the disclaimer from http://www.python.org/1.5/bugrelease.html).

We haven't decided yet what to do with the greater topic of that
discussion (or was it a different one?) -- whether the values printed
by typing a bare expression in interactive mode should use str(),
repr(), or str-special-casing-the-snot-out-of-strings().

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)