how to control formatting of a namedtuple in a list

[Ned Batchelder]

On Thursday, November 17, 2016 at 6:50:07 PM UTC-5, Boylan, Ross wrote:
> Thank you; I can confirm that overriding __repr__ makes the list display as I wanted.
> 
> The decision to use repr inside the list seems very odd, given the context, namely formatting something for display or looking for a simple string representation.  It seems more natural to me to use str or, if in a format, the default formatting all the way down.  Is there a good reason it's repr?


I think of it as str is for customers, repr is for developers. Or, repr is
for nerds, str is for civilians, etc.  If you print a list, then you will
get square brackets and commas separating the display.  That is, you are
already getting a nerdy output. So the contents of the list are also
displayed in the nerdy way, with repr.

If you want a nice display of the contents, you also have to control the
display of the list itself, so you can do whatever you need, and use str
on the contents yourself.

--Ned.