[Tutor] xls file

[Kent Johnson]

Kirk Bailey wrote:
> I extracted cell 0,0 and it is
>  >>> x
> u'Bob Dobbs'
>  >>>
> 
> So I did this:
>  >>> str(x)
> 'Bob Dobbs'
>  >>>
>  >>> b[1:-1]
> 'ob Dobb'
>  >>>
> oops... well,then i did this
>  >>> print b
> Bob Dobbs
>  >>>
> which is as I need it. any use to the rest of the list?

You have discovered that the read-eval-print loop of the interpreter 
prints repr(obj). repr() is kind of a programmer's view of something; it 
often gives a representation of an object that you could use as input to 
the interpreter. Specifically, for strings, repr(someString) includes 
the quotes that you see printed in the interpreter. You will also 
sometimes see backslash escapes like '\xe9' in the repr() of a string.

On the other hand, when you explicitly print a string, the characters of 
the string are output directly to the terminal (stdout). Any special 
characters are interpreted by the terminal rather that being escaped, 
and the quotes are not added.

This is useful behaviour but it can be very confusing to newcomers.

Kent

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