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in Python by (47.6k points)

I have some data objects on which I want to implement a strong and equals functions that go in-depth.

I implemented str and eq and although equality works fine I cannot make str behave in the same way:

class Bean(object):

     def __init__(self, attr1, attr2):

          self.attr1 = attr1

          self.attr2 = attr2

     def __str__(self):

         return str(self.__dict__)

     def __eq__(self, other):

         return self.__dict__ == other.__dict__

When I run:

t1 = Bean("bean 1", [Bean("bean 1.1", "same"), Bean("bean 1.2", 42)])

t2 = Bean("bean 1", [Bean("bean 1.1", "same"), Bean("bean 1.2", 42)])

t3 = Bean("bean 1", [Bean("bean 1.1", "different"), Bean("bean 1.2", 42)])

print(t1)

print(t2)

print(t3)

print(t1 == t2)

print(t1 == t3)

I get:

{'attr2': [<__main__.Bean object at 0x7fc092030f28>, <__main__.Bean object at 0x7fc092030f60>], 'attr1': 'bean 1'} {'attr2': [<__main__.Bean object at 0x7fc091faa588>, <__main__.Bean object at 0x7fc092045128>], 'attr1': 'bean 1'} {'attr2': [<__main__.Bean object at 0x7fc0920355c0>, <__main__.Bean object at 0x7fc092035668>], 'attr1': 'bean 1'} 

True 
False

since t1 and t2 contain the same values the equals return true (as expected) while since t3 contains a different value in the list the result is false (also as expected). What I would like is to have the same behaviour for the to string (basically to also go in-depth also for the elements in the list (or set or dict ...).

For print(t1) I would like to obtain something like:

{'attr2': ["{'attr2': 'same', 'attr1': 'bean 1.1'}", "{'attr2': 42, 'attr1': 'bean 1.2'}"], 'attr1': 'bean 1'}

which is actually obtained if I do:

Bean("bean 1", [Bean("bean 1.1", "same").__str__(), Bean("bean 1.2", 42).__str__()]).__str__

Since I do not know the types of the attributes attr1, attr2 in my Bean objects (they may be listed but also sets, dictionaries etc.) is would be nice to have a simple and elegant solution that would not require type checking ...

Is this possible?

1 Answer

0 votes
by (106k points)

To convert an object to string in Python you can use __repr__ instead of __str__, which works recursively, although that is not a good idea most of the times (look at this answer for more details:-

def __repr__(self):

return str(self.__dict__)

To know more about this you can have a look at the following video tutorial:-

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