PEP: 3140
Title: str(container) should call str(item), not repr(item)
Author: Oleg Broytman <phd@phdru.name>,
        Jim J. Jewett <jimjjewett@gmail.com>
Discussions-To: python-3000@python.org
Status: Rejected
Type: Standards Track
Created: 27-May-2008
Post-History: 28-May-2008


Rejection
=========

Guido said this would cause too much disturbance too close to beta. See [1]_.


Abstract
========

This document discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the
current implementation of ``str(container)``.  It also discusses the
pros and cons of a different approach - to call ``str(item)`` instead
of ``repr(item)``.


Motivation
==========

Currently ``str(container)`` calls ``repr`` on items.  Arguments for it:

* containers refuse to guess what the user wants to see on
  ``str(container)`` - surroundings, delimiters, and so on;
* ``repr(item)`` usually displays type information - apostrophes
  around strings, class names, etc.

Arguments against:

* it's illogical; ``str()`` is expected to call ``__str__`` if it exists,
  not ``__repr__``;
* there is no standard way to print a container's content calling
  items' ``__str__``, that's inconvenient in cases where ``__str__`` and
  ``__repr__`` return different results;
* ``repr(item)`` sometimes do wrong things (hex-escapes non-ASCII strings,
  e.g.)

This PEP proposes to change how ``str(container)`` works.  It is
proposed to mimic how ``repr(container)`` works except one detail - call
``str`` on items instead of ``repr``.  This allows a user to choose
what results she want to get - from ``item.__repr__`` or ``item.__str__``.


Current situation
=================

Most container types (tuples, lists, dicts, sets, etc.) do not
implement ``__str__`` method, so ``str(container)`` calls
``container.__repr__``, and ``container.__repr__``, once called, forgets
it is called from ``str`` and always calls ``repr`` on the container's
items.

This behaviour has advantages and disadvantages.  One advantage is
that most items are represented with type information - strings
are surrounded by apostrophes, instances may have both class name
and instance data::

    >>> print([42, '42'])
    [42, '42']
    >>> print([Decimal('42'), datetime.now()])
    [Decimal("42"), datetime.datetime(2008, 5, 27, 19, 57, 43, 485028)]

The disadvantage is that ``__repr__`` often returns technical data
(like '``<object at address>``') or unreadable string (hex-encoded
string if the input is non-ASCII string)::

    >>> print(['тест'])
    ['\xd4\xc5\xd3\xd4']

One of the motivations for :pep:`3138` is that neither ``repr`` nor ``str``
will allow the sensible printing of dicts whose keys are non-ASCII
text strings.  Now that Unicode identifiers are allowed, it
includes Python's own attribute dicts.  This also includes JSON
serialization (and caused some hoops for the json lib).

:pep:`3138` proposes to fix this by breaking the "repr is safe ASCII"
invariant, and changing the way ``repr`` (which is used for
persistence) outputs some objects, with system-dependent failures.

Changing how ``str(container)`` works would allow easy debugging in
the normal case, and retain the safety of ASCII-only for the
machine-readable  case.  The only downside is that ``str(x)`` and
``repr(x)`` would more often be different -- but only in those cases
where the current almost-the-same version is insufficient.

It also seems illogical that ``str(container)`` calls ``repr`` on items
instead of ``str``.  It's only logical to expect following code::

    class Test:
        def __str__(self):
            return "STR"

        def __repr__(self):
            return "REPR"


    test = Test()
    print(test)
    print(repr(test))
    print([test])
    print(str([test]))

to print::

    STR
    REPR
    [STR]
    [STR]

where it actually prints::

    STR
    REPR
    [REPR]
    [REPR]

Especially it is illogical to see that print in Python 2 uses ``str``
if it is called on what seems to be a tuple::

    >>> print Decimal('42'), datetime.now()
    42 2008-05-27 20:16:22.534285

where on an actual tuple it prints::

    >>> print((Decimal('42'), datetime.now()))
    (Decimal("42"), datetime.datetime(2008, 5, 27, 20, 16, 27, 937911))


A different approach - call ``str(item)``
=========================================

For example, with numbers it is often only the value that people
care about.

::

    >>> print Decimal('3')
    3

But putting the value in a list forces users to read the type
information, exactly as if ``repr`` had been called for the benefit of
a machine::

    >>> print [Decimal('3')]
    [Decimal("3")]

After this change, the type information would not clutter the ``str``
output::

    >>> print "%s".format([Decimal('3')])
    [3]
    >>> str([Decimal('3')])  # ==
    [3]

But it would still be available if desired::

    >>> print "%r".format([Decimal('3')])
    [Decimal('3')]
    >>> repr([Decimal('3')])  # ==
    [Decimal('3')]

There is a number of strategies to fix the problem.  The most
radical is to change ``__repr__`` so it accepts a new parameter (flag)
"called from ``str``, so call ``str`` on items, not ``repr``".  The
drawback of the proposal is that every ``__repr__`` implementation
must be changed.  Introspection could help a bit (inspect ``__repr__``
before calling if it accepts 2 or 3 parameters), but introspection
doesn't work on classes written in C, like all built-in containers.

Less radical proposal is to implement ``__str__`` methods for built-in
container types.  The obvious drawback is a duplication of effort - all
those ``__str__`` and ``__repr__`` implementations are only differ
in one small detail - if they call ``str`` or ``repr`` on items.

The most conservative proposal is not to change str at all but
to allow developers to implement their own application- or
library-specific pretty-printers.  The drawback is again
a multiplication of effort and proliferation of many small
specific container-traversal algorithms.


Backward compatibility
======================

In those cases where type information is more important than
usual, it will still be possible to get the current results by
calling ``repr`` explicitly.


References
==========

.. [1] Guido van Rossum, PEP: str(container) should call str(item), not
       repr(item)
       https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-3000/2008-May/013876.html

Copyright
=========

This document has been placed in the public domain.
