Confused about __str__ on list in Python

Python has two different ways to convert an object to a string: str() and repr(). Printing an object uses str(); printing a list containing an object uses str() for the list itself, but the implementation of list.__str__() calls repr() for the individual items.

So you should also overwrite __repr__(). A simple

__repr__ = __str__

at the end of the class body will do the trick.

Because of the infinite superiority of Python over Java, Python has not one, but two toString operations.

One is __str__, the other is __repr__

__str__ will return a human readable string. __repr__ will return an internal representation.

__repr__ can be invoked on an object by calling repr(obj) or by using backticks `obj`.

When printing lists as well as other container classes, the contained elements will be printed using __repr__.