Is there a method (similar to str() method in R) that can print the data structure in python?

[Simon Forman]

On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 12:14 PM, Peng Yu <pengyu.ut at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Robert Kern <robert.kern at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 2009-09-26 09:32 AM, Peng Yu wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I am looking for a method in python that is similar to the function
>>> str() in R, if you are familiar with R,
>>>
>>> If you have no idea of R, what I want is to print the class
>>> information of an object and the values of its members. Overloading
>>> '__expr__' and '__repr__' then using 'print' can sort of do what I
>>> want. But not quite. For example, if I have a list of many elements, I
>>> don't want to print all the elements. R's str() function can
>>> automatically take care of this issue. It also has other advantages, I
>>> am wondering if there is something similar available in python?
>>
>> I use Armin Ronacher's pretty.py as a pluggable pretty-printer. You can plug
>> into its logic to implement these kinds of tools.
>>
>>  http://dev.pocoo.org/hg/sandbox/file/tip/pretty
>
> But I want an even simpler solution. I don't want the user to define
> __pretty__. Is there a tool that can automatically print the content
> of an object without defining such a member function like __pretty__.
>
> Regards,
> Peng

Have you examined the pprint module?

http://docs.python.org/library/pprint.html

The repr module might also be of interest:

http://docs.python.org/library/repr.html

HTH,
~Simon