Print LIST of unicode chars without escape characters

Question

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

>>> s = \"äåö\"
>>> s
\'\\xc3\\xa4\\xc3         


        

Answer 1

Is this satisfactory?

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


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

Answer 2

Another solution

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

gives [äåö, äå]

Answer 3

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

>>> s = ['äåö']
>>> s
['\xc3\xa4\xc3\xa5\xc3\xb6']

In Python 3, however, it displays properly:

>>> s = ['äåö']
>>> s
['äåö']

Answer 4

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']'

Answer 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:
# ['\xd0\x92\xd0\xb0\xd0\xbb\xd0\xb5\xd0\xbd\xd0\xba\xd0\xb8', '\xd0\x9c\xd0\xb0\xd1\x82\xd1\x80\xd1\x91\xd1\x88\xd0\xba\xd0\xb0']
print ReprToStr(russian1)
# Output:
# ['Валенки', 'Матрёшка']


russian2 = {'Валенки': 145, 'Матрёшка': 100500}
print russian2
# Output:
# {'\xd0\x92\xd0\xb0\xd0\xbb\xd0\xb5\xd0\xbd\xd0\xba\xd0\xb8': 145, '\xd0\x9c\xd0\xb0\xd1\x82\xd1\x80\xd1\x91\xd1\x88\xd0\xba\xd0\xb0': 100500}
print ReprToStr(russian2)
# Output:
# {'Матрёшка': 100500, 'Валенки': 145}