4.10 The repr Module

The repr module provides a version of the built-in repr function, with limits on most sizes (string lengths, recursion, etc). Example 4-17 shows the module in use.

Example 4-17. Using the repr Module

File: repr-example-1.py

# note: this overrides the built-in 'repr' function
from repr import repr

# an annoyingly recursive data structure
data = (
    "X" * 100000,
    )
data = [data]
data.append(data)

print repr(data)

[('XXXXXXXXXXXX...XXXXXXXXXXXXX',), [('XXXXXXXXXXXX...XXXXXXXXXX
XXX',), [('XXXXXXXXXXXX...XXXXXXXXXXXXX',), [('XXXXXXXXXXXX...XX
XXXXXXXXXXX',), [('XXXXXXXXXXXX...XXXXXXXXXXXXX',), [(...), [...
]]]]]]]