How to remove the quotes around the value in the string representation of a dict?

Question

How can I not print the quotes around a string? I understand that this is a string, as a result Python is adding the quotes.

To give more context:

def a(content):
    return {'row_contents': content}

print(a("Hello"))

This gives output as:

{'row_contents': 'Hello'}

I want to remove the quotes around Hello while returning this (something as below)

{'row_contents': Hello}

Is there an easy way to achieve this?

Of course, this is possible. But can you explain a little bit more what you're trying to do? Are you sure this isn't an [XY problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem)? — finefoot, Feb 26 '20 at 10:30
Already an answer is there: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1482649/in-python-interpreter-return-without — Manas Khandelwal, Feb 26 '20 at 10:31
Does this answer your question? [In Python interpreter, return without " ' "](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1482649/in-python-interpreter-return-without) — Manas Khandelwal, Feb 26 '20 at 10:31
@ManasKhandelwal: It doesn't. I do not want to use print as that will not return the value i am expecting as output which could be used in another variable — Prabhat Ratnala, Feb 26 '20 at 10:32

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 26 '20 at 10:33

1

you can ues f string

def a(content):
    return f"{{'row_contents': {content}}}"


print(a("Hello"))

or just this:

def a(content):
    return "{'row_contents':"+content+"}"

Output:

{'row_contents': Hello}

answered Feb 26 '20 at 10:33

Allen Jing

79
1
3

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 27 '20 at 09:37

I still believe this question has a high probability of being an XY problem.

However, regarding your question as it stands: If you don't want to modify print, you're only left with modifying the return value of your function a. Your comment above says:

I want to return a dict

This sounds like simply returning a modified string representation of {'row_contents': content} isn't really what you're looking for. Yet, dict.__repr__ itself is read-only, so I guess the closest solution would be to return an instance of a custom dict subclass:

class CustomDict(dict):
    def __repr__(self):
        return "{" + ", ".join([repr(k) + ": " + str(v) for k, v in self.items()]) + "}"

def a(content):
    return CustomDict({'row_contents': content})

print(a("Hello"))
print(isinstance(a("Hello"), dict))

Which prints:

{'row_contents': Hello}
True

You might need to improve CustomDict.__repr__ depending on what modifications are necessary to provide the desired output. You could also modify the original string representation super().__repr__().

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 26 '20 at 10:32

0

You can simply get the string representation of the dictionary and remove the single quotes.

def a(content):
    return {'row_contents': content}

def print_dict_without_quotes(d):
    print(str(d).replace("'", "").replace('"', ''))

print_dict_without_quotes(a("Hello"))

Output:

{row_contents: Hello}

answered Feb 26 '20 at 10:32

Diptangsu Goswami

5,554
3
25
36

1

Yet, this removes the quotes from the keys, too. – finefoot Feb 27 '20 at 09:38

How to remove the quotes around the value in the string representation of a dict?

3 Answers3