Sub-classing unicode: getting the unicode value

["Martin v. Löwis"]

>>> How does my object get its own value?
>>   def __unicode__(self):
>>     return unicode(self)
> 
> I get an endless recursion with this.

I see. That worked fine in Python 2.4, but give a stack overflow
in Python 2.5.

Depending on your exact class definition, something like

       return super(unicode, self).__getitem__(slice(0,len(self)))

should work.

> I must admit, though, that I probably overestimate the costs
> connected with unicode(my_excerpt) because Gabriel is probably right
> that no real conversion takes place.  A mere attribute lookup may
> still be cheaper, but only very slightly.

I don't understand that remark. To implement the conversion in the
way you want it to be, it definitely needs to produce a copy of
self.

Regards,
Martin