[Python-ideas] pprint in displayhook

[Eric V. Smith]

On 9/27/2013 8:40 AM, Nick Coghlan wrote:
> 
> On 27 Sep 2013 21:58, "Antoine Pitrou" <solipsis at pitrou.net
> <mailto:solipsis at pitrou.net>> wrote:
>>
>> Le Fri, 27 Sep 2013 14:15:13 +0300,
>> Serhiy Storchaka <storchaka at gmail.com <mailto:storchaka at gmail.com>> a
>> écrit :
>> > 27.09.13 13:15, Antoine Pitrou написав(ла):
>> > > Le Fri, 27 Sep 2013 13:07:18 +0300,
>> > > Serhiy Storchaka <storchaka at gmail.com <mailto:storchaka at gmail.com>> a
>> > > écrit :
>> > >> What are you think about using pprint.pprint() to output the result
>> > >> of evaluating an expression entered in an interactive Python
>> > >> session (and in IDLE)?
>> > >
>> > > I'm not sure I like this idea.  AFAICT pprint() isn't bullet-proof,
>> > > and it would be a pain to debug if it failed to display some objects
>> > > properly.
>> >
>> > We can set displayhook in site.py and for debug restore it from
>> > sys.__displayhook__. This is not more painful than use readline and
>> > enable completion by default.
>>
>> :-) I don't know, I'll let other people experiment with it.
> 
> displayhook uses repr by default. Even normal print would make numbers
> and numeric string output ambiguous.

Wouldn't this also invalidate the millions (I'm guessing) of examples in
blogs, how-tos, etc. that show interactive command line examples? I'm
sympathetic, but I don't think it's worth it.

-- 
Eric.