Simulating call of instance like a list or tuple

[Brett Cannon]

First, thanks to everyone who replied to my post.

It seems everyone is thinking that I want __repr__ or __str__, which is in
the right  vein, but not quite it.  I want the same functionality, but I
want to be able to return something other than a string.  I don't think it
exists outside of the built-in classes.

-Brett C.



On Sat, 12 Jan 2002, Peter Hansen wrote:

> Brett Cannon wrote:
> >
> > With Python 2.2's wonderful ability of subclassing built-ins, I began to
> > wonder if there was a way to call an instance like a list or tuple, but
> > without subclassing them.
> >
> > In other words, have a class named foo with an instance called bar.  Now,
> > call bar like:
> > >>> bar
> > and have  it return something, just like how calling a list or  tuple like
> > that returned the list or  tuple value.  I can't find any special methods
> > that allow you to do that.  Does that exist, or is that just one of the
> > things that still separates built-ins and user-defined objects?
>
> Do you mean __repr__() ?  If you override that in the class definition
> you should get what you want.
>
> >>> class A:
> ...   def __repr__(self):
> ...     return "I'm like a list!"
> ...
> >>> a = A()
> >>> a
> I'm like a list!
>
> -Peter
>