__str__ vs. __repr__

[Just van Rossum]

At 2:04 AM -0500 11/5/99, Tim Peters wrote:
>rendering Python useless to grownups.  How does Python's Unicode story
>relate to this?  Displaying a Unicode string as a pile of \uxxxx (whatever)
>escapes defeats the whole purpose of Unicode.  Ditto displaying it in UTF-7.
>OTOH, for some number of years to come it will be a rare display device that
>*won't* treat Unicode 16-bit values (whether or not UTF-8 encoded) as a pile
>of 8-bit control codes.
[ ... ]
>Until Unicode takes over the world, there's nothing you can do other than
>tell users the truth:  "most of" printable 7-bit ASCII displays the same way
>across the world, but outside of that *all* bets are off.  It will vary by
>all of OS, display device, displaying program, and user configuration
>choices.

As a step towards a Unicode-savvy Python, would it be an idea to define
Unicode versions of repr(), str(), ob.__repr__() and ob.__str__()?

eg.
  urepr()
  ustr()
  ob.__urepr__()
  ob.__ustr__()

'print' could then use these if it knows stdout is a Unicode-savvy output
stream.

Just