[wingide-users] Stack Data / Watch should use __repr__

[Timothy Reaves]

On Oct 12, 2006, at 6:17 PM, Ken Kinder wrote:

> On Thursday 12 October 2006 2:03 pm, Peter Fein wrote:
>> It'd be handy if the Value column of the Stack Data & Watch tools  
>> used
>> user-defined __repr__ if available, instead of the builtin-style
>> <mymod.myclass -0x12345678>.
>>
>> While I'm at it, the following should probably be excluded from  
>> display by
>> default: __file__, __name__, __builtins__, __doc__, __module__,
>> __weakref__, __dict__.  I've added these manually in prefs, but seems
>> sensible.
>
> Hmm, if there are very many objects, calling __repr__ could be  
> slow. And since
> that invokes code in your project, it wouldn't be a strictly passive
> debugger...
>
> On the other hand, memory address is just about never useful. Maybe  
> you could
> right click and say, "For objects of this type, show this  
> attribute." Like
> tell the debugger to show the "name" attribute for "Person"  
> objects. Then
> again, that could be weird and complex.


	The debuggers I've used, mainly winpdb, use __repr__.  Seems to be a  
common usage.  And it is helpful.  Very similar to the way all Java  
debuggers use toString().   As far as being passive, well, my  
understanding is __repr__ is supposed to do more than toString(), but  
still; if that can't be counted on to be bug free, not much could be.