[Python-ideas] Change repr(Ellipsis) to '...'

[Guido van Rossum]

-1 here. Shorter is not always more beautiful.

On Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 8:12 AM, dag.odenhall at gmail.com
<dag.odenhall at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7 August 2011 14:01, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 2:33 PM, Mike Graham <mikegraham at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 7:21 PM, dag.odenhall at gmail.com
>>> <dag.odenhall at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Now that it is valid in any expressions, I'd argue the repr should
>>>> reflect the literal syntax. There are however some reasons this might
>>>> not be desirable: ellipsis is used to represent recursive objects, and
>>>> by reprlib when summarizing long reprs. Thus there would be ambiguity.
>>>> A counter-argument may be that a repr isn't intended to be completely
>>>> unambiguous, reversible or parseable - in deed many objects mimic the
>>>> literal syntax of builtin types even though they add special behavior.
>>>> I was going to give os.environ as an example here, and then learned
>>>> this is no longer the case in Python 3, so maybe it is after all seen
>>>> as undesirable. :)
>>>>
>>>> Anyway: discuss!
>>>
>>> I think the current state is a lot more helpful in debugging, and that
>>> making repr(...) be "..." would result in occasional confusion but no
>>> positive effects.
>>
>> Interesting idea, but far too confusing in the interactive interpreter
>> and in doctests:
>>
>> - '...' is also the default prompt for continuation lines (e.g. when
>> defining a function)
>> - '...' is used to mark 'match anything' sections in doctests
>>
>> The situation might have been different if the syntax had always been
>> allowed everywhere, but there's no compelling reason to change it now.
>
> Strong, valid points; I'd say I'm +/-0 on this proposal myself at this point.
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--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)