Representation

Announcements
String Representations
String Representations

An object value should behave like the kind of data it is meant to represent

For instance, by producing a string representation of itself

Strings are important: they represent language and programs

In Python, all objects produce two string representations:

• The str is legible to humans
• The repr is legible to the Python interpreter

The str and repr strings are often the same, but not always

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The repr String for an Object

The repr function returns a Python expression (a string) that evaluates to an equal object

repr(object) -> string

Return the canonical string representation of the object.

For most object types, eval(repr(object)) == object.

The result of calling repr on a value is what Python prints in an interactive session

>>> 12e12
12000000000000.0
>>> print(repr(12e12))
12000000000000.0

Some objects do not have a simple Python-readable string

>>> repr(min)
'<built-in function min>'

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The str String for an Object

Human interpretable strings are useful as well:

>>> from fractions import Fraction

>>> half = Fraction(1, 2)
>>> repr(half)
'Fraction(1, 2)'
>>> str(half)
'1/2'

The result of calling str on the value of an expression is what Python prints
using the print function:

>>> print(half)
1/2

(Demo)

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F-Strings
String Interpolation in Python

String interpolation involves evaluating a string literal that contains expressions.

Using string concatenation: The result of evaluating an f-string

literal contains the str string of the
>>> from math import pi value of each sub-expression.
>>> 'pi starts with ' + str(pi) + '...'
'pi starts with 3.141592653589793...' Sub-expressions are evaluated in the
current environment.
>>> print('pi starts with ' + str(pi) + '...')
pi starts with 3.141592653589793...

Using string interpolation:

>>> f'pi starts with {pi}...' (Demo)

'pi starts with 3.141592653589793...'

>>> print(f'pi starts with {pi}...')

pi starts with 3.141592653589793...

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Polymorphic Functions
Polymorphic Functions

Polymorphic function: A function that applies to many (poly) different forms (morph) of data

str and repr are both polymorphic; they apply to any object

repr invokes a zero-argument method __repr__ on its argument

>>> half.__repr__()
'Fraction(1, 2)'

str invokes a zero-argument method __str__ on its argument

>>> half.__str__()
'1/2'

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Implementing repr and str

The behavior of repr is slightly more complicated than invoking __repr__ on its argument:
• An instance attribute called __repr__ is ignored! Only class attributes are found
• Question: How would we implement this behavior?
def repr(x):
return x.__repr__(x)
The behavior of str is also complicated:
• An instance attribute called __str__ is ignored def repr(x):
return x.__repr__()
• If no __str__ attribute is found, uses repr string
• (By the way, str is a class, not a function) def repr(x):
• Question: How would we implement this behavior? return type(x).__repr__(x)

def repr(x):
return type(x).__repr__()

def repr(x):
(Demo) return super(x).__repr__()

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Interfaces

Message passing: Objects interact by looking up attributes on each other (passing messages)

The attribute look-up rules allow different data types to respond to the same message

A shared message (attribute name) that elicits similar behavior from different object
classes is a powerful method of abstraction

An interface is a set of shared messages, along with a specification of what they mean

Example:

Classes that implement __repr__ and __str__ methods that return Python-interpretable and
human-readable strings implement an interface for producing string representations

(Demo)

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Special Method Names
Special Method Names in Python

Certain names are special because they have built-in behavior

These names always start and end with two underscores

__init__ Method invoked automatically when an object is constructed

__repr__ Method invoked to display an object as a Python expression

__add__ Method invoked to add one object to another

__bool__ Method invoked to convert an object to True or False

__float__ Method invoked to convert an object to a float (real number)

>>> zero, one, two = 0, 1, 2 >>> zero, one, two = 0, 1, 2

>>> one + two Same >>> one.__add__(two)
3 behavior 3
>>> bool(zero), bool(one) using >>> zero.__bool__(), one.__bool__()
(False, True) methods (False, True)

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Special Methods

Adding instances of user-defined classes invokes either the __add__ or __radd__ method

>>> Ratio(1, 3) + Ratio(1, 6)

Ratio(1, 2)

>>> Ratio(1, 3).__add__(Ratio(1, 6))

Ratio(1, 2)

>>> Ratio(1, 6).__radd__(Ratio(1, 3))

Ratio(1, 2)

http://getpython3.com/diveintopython3/special-method-names.html

http://docs.python.org/py3k/reference/datamodel.html#special-method-names

(Demo)

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Generic Functions

A polymorphic function might take two or more arguments of different types

Type Dispatching: Inspect the type of an argument in order to select behavior

Type Coercion: Convert one value to match the type of another

>>> Ratio(1, 3) + 1
Ratio(4, 3)

>>> 1 + Ratio(1, 3)
Ratio(4, 3)

>>> from math import pi

>>> Ratio(1, 3) + pi
3.4749259869231266

(Demo)

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