Print LIST of unicode chars without escape characters

If you have a string as below, with unicode chars, you can print it, and get the unescaped version:

>>> s = "äåö"
>>> s
'xc3xa4xc3xa5xc3xb6'
>>> print s
äåö

but if we have a list containing the string above and print it:

>>> s = ['äåö']
>>> s
['xc3xa4xc3xa5xc3xb6']
>>> print s
['xc3xa4xc3xa5xc3xb6']

You still get escaped character sequences. How do you go about to get the content of the list unescaped, is it possible? Like this:

>>> print s
['äåö']

Also, if the strings are of the unicode type, how do you go about doing the same as above?

>>> s = u'åäö'
>>> s
u'xe5xe4xf6'
>>> print s
åäö
>>> s = [u'åäö']
>>> s
[u'xe5xe4xf6']
>>> print s
[u'xe5xe4xf6']

Answers:

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Method 1

When you print a string, you get the output of the __str__ method of the object – in this case the string without quotes. The __str__ method of a list is different, it creates a string containing the opening and closing [] and the string produced by the __repr__ method of each object contained within. What you’re seeing is the difference between __str__ and __repr__.

You can build your own string instead:

print '[' + ','.join("'" + str(x) + "'" for x in s) + ']'

This version should work on both Unicode and byte strings in Python 2:

print u'[' + u','.join(u"'" + unicode(x) + u"'" for x in s) + u']'

Method 2

Is this satisfactory?

>>> s = ['äåö', 'äå']
>>> print "n".join(s)
äåö
äå
>>> print ", ".join(s)
äåö, äå


>>> s = [u'åäö']
>>> print ",".join(s)
åäö

Method 3

In Python 2.x the default is what you’re experiencing:

>>> s = ['äåö']
>>> s
['xc3xa4xc3xa5xc3xb6']

In Python 3, however, it displays properly:

>>> s = ['äåö']
>>> s
['äåö']

Method 4

Another solution

s = ['äåö', 'äå']
encodedlist=', '.join(map(unicode, s))
print(u'[{}]'.format(encodedlist).encode('UTF-8'))

gives
[äåö, äå]

Method 5

One can use this wrapper class:

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

class ReprToStrString(str):
    def __repr__(self):
        return "'" + self.__str__() + "'"


class ReprToStr(object):
    def __init__(self, printable):
        if isinstance(printable, str):
            self._printable = ReprToStrString(printable)
        elif isinstance(printable, list):
            self._printable = list([ReprToStr(item) for item in printable])
        elif isinstance(printable, dict):
            self._printable = dict(
                [(ReprToStr(key), ReprToStr(value)) for (key, value) in printable.items()])
        else:
            self._printable = printable

    def __repr__(self):
        return self._printable.__repr__()


russian1 = ['Валенки', 'Матрёшка']
print russian1
# Output:
# ['xd0x92xd0xb0xd0xbbxd0xb5xd0xbdxd0xbaxd0xb8', 'xd0x9cxd0xb0xd1x82xd1x80xd1x91xd1x88xd0xbaxd0xb0']
print ReprToStr(russian1)
# Output:
# ['Валенки', 'Матрёшка']


russian2 = {'Валенки': 145, 'Матрёшка': 100500}
print russian2
# Output:
# {'xd0x92xd0xb0xd0xbbxd0xb5xd0xbdxd0xbaxd0xb8': 145, 'xd0x9cxd0xb0xd1x82xd1x80xd1x91xd1x88xd0xbaxd0xb0': 100500}
print ReprToStr(russian2)
# Output:
# {'Матрёшка': 100500, 'Валенки': 145}

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0