eval(repr(object)) hardly ever works

[Steve Holden]

Matthew Wilson wrote:
> I understand that idea of an object's __repr__ method is to return a
> string representation that can then be eval()'d back to life, but it
> seems to me that it doesn't always work. 
> 
> For example it doesn't work for instances of the object class:
> 
> In [478]: eval(repr(object()))
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>    File "<string>", line 1
>      <object object at 0xf233e8>
>      ^
> SyntaxError: invalid syntax
> 
> It seems to work for types like integers and dictionaries and lists,
> but not for much else.
> 
That's intentional. Would you have it return the code of all the methods 
when you take the repr() of a class?

regards
  Steve
-- 
Steve Holden       +44 150 684 7255  +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC/Ltd          http://www.holdenweb.com
Skype: holdenweb       http://holdenweb.blogspot.com
Recent Ramblings     http://del.icio.us/steve.holden