[Python-Dev] str(container) should call str(item), not repr(item)

[Sebastian Haase]

On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 10:59 AM,  <skip at pobox.com> wrote:
>
>    Ondrej> i.e. the str on list (and tuple and dict) calls repr() on the
>    Ondrej> elements, instead of str. This really seems to me like a bug.
>    Ondrej> Because if I wanted the repr() representation, I'd call repr()
>    Ondrej> on the list/tuple/dict. If I want a nice readable
>    Ondrej> representation, I call str(). That's the philosophy, no?
>
> I think this is the case which calls for the distinction:
>
>    >>> str(["1", "2", "3"])
>    "['1', '2', '3']"
>    >>> str([1, 2, 3])
>    '[1, 2, 3]'
>
> If the first case did as you suggested you couldn't distinguish it from the
> second.
>
Look at this -- it seems to me that it should work fine....
---- Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Apr 15 2008, 22:57:26)
>>> str("qwer")
'qwer'
>>> repr("qwer")
"'qwer'"

- Sebastian Haase