ActivePython word wrap in Shell or PythonWin during list printout

[Rufus V. Smith]

I am running the latest Python from ActiveState and I have a
problem that when I print a long list (Like dir()), the entire list
prints out on one line and I have to scroll over to read it.

Is there an environment setting to force word wrap at
a certain line length?

Or is there a list function that can take a list and
pretty print it with word wrap.

(Not having one gave me an opportunity to learn
some  Python scripting as I wrote my own, but
if there was a library standard, that might be better. )


def marginprint(L,margin=80):
     b=""
     for a in L:
         if len(str(a)+b)+3 >= margin :
                print b
                b = "'"+str(a)+"'"
         else:
                if b: b+=","
                b += "'"+str(a)+"'"
     if b: print b
     b=""


With this function, I just type marginprint(dir())
and it will respect the margins.

Only I have to load this into my environment every time
I bring it up.