all Python 3Built-in functionsterm

repr

strings

Returns the official string representation of an object — one the object can be recreated from where possible.

Syntax

repr(object)

Reach for repr when print is hiding something: it shows quotes and escape sequences, so you can tell the string '1' from the number 1 and spot a stray trailing space or newline. Inside containers Python always calls repr on the elements — that is why print(['a']) shows quotes while print('a') does not. For your own classes repr falls back to the useless <Foo object at 0x...> until you define __repr__.

Examples

print(repr('hello'))  # → 'hello'
print(repr([1,2,3]))  # → [1, 2, 3]
print(repr(None))     # → None
print(repr(3.14))     # → 3.14
print(repr({'a':1}))  # → {'a': 1}

See also

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