Is there a method (similar to str() method in R) that can print the data structure in python?

[Peng Yu]

On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Robert Kern <robert.kern at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2009-09-26 09:32 AM, Peng Yu wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am looking for a method in python that is similar to the function
>> str() in R, if you are familiar with R,
>>
>> If you have no idea of R, what I want is to print the class
>> information of an object and the values of its members. Overloading
>> '__expr__' and '__repr__' then using 'print' can sort of do what I
>> want. But not quite. For example, if I have a list of many elements, I
>> don't want to print all the elements. R's str() function can
>> automatically take care of this issue. It also has other advantages, I
>> am wondering if there is something similar available in python?
>
> I use Armin Ronacher's pretty.py as a pluggable pretty-printer. You can plug
> into its logic to implement these kinds of tools.
>
>  http://dev.pocoo.org/hg/sandbox/file/tip/pretty

But I want an even simpler solution. I don't want the user to define
__pretty__. Is there a tool that can automatically print the content
of an object without defining such a member function like __pretty__.

Regards,
Peng