printing list, is this a bug?

[William Chang]

Is the different behavior between __repr__ and __str__ intentional
when it comes to printing lists? Basically I want to print out a list
with elements of my own class, but when I overwrite __str__, __str__
doesn't get called but if I overwrite __repr__, __repr__ will get
called. Is this a bug?



For example:

>>> class StrElement(object):
...     def __str__(self):
...         return "String Element"
...

>>> a = [StrElement(), StrElement()]
>>> print a
[<__main__.StrElement object at 0xb7dc05cc>, <__main__.StrElement
object at 0xb7dc048c>]

>>> print StrElement()
String Element



But if overwrite __repr__:

>>> class ReprElement(object):
...     def __repr__(self):
...         return "Repr Element"
...

>>> b = [ReprElement(), ReprElement()]
>>> print b
[Repr Element, Repr Element]

>>> print ReprElement()
Repr Element