如何为某些方法而不是其他方法忽略__repr __（）

Question

sorry I am not quite sure how to put the title more accurately.

I have a class with __repr__() to report the some key attributes of class.

Most of my methods return self, so that I can daisy-chain methods. eg a.m1().m2()...

class Myclass:
    def __init__(self):
        self.a = 1
        self.b = "hello"

    def __repr__(self):
        msg = f"Myclass: a = {self.a}, b is {self.b}."
        return msg

    def plus(self, n):
        self.a += n
        return self

    def concat(self, s):
        self.b += s
        return self

    def play(self):
        # play audio here
        return self

ac = Myclass()
ac.plus(n=4)  # Ok i would like to see __repr__ output

ac.play()  # no I dont want to see __repr__

The __repr__ works great in Jupyter as it can give me a report on some key attributes by just executing ac . However, I have a play() method to play the audio, which also return self, and I absolutely do not want the print to execute as sometime I might need to call this method multiple times quickly.

So is there a way to have return self in all my methods, but not call __repr__ on return?

Many thanks

Answer 1

if you assign the result to some variable, the interactive input doesn't call __repr__ .

I'd do:

_ = ac.play()

using an anonymous _ variable to make it clear that it's throwaway, which also keeps the interactive interpreter feature which stores any function result in _ implicitly.

In terms of speed, yes, it's faster since __repr__ isn't called, and _ would be assigned no matter what.

Answer 2

ac.play(); - the semicolon keeps IPython/Jupyter from displaying the output, or assigning it to Out or _ .

from hpaulj's comment