Notice how trying to print a method causes it to submit the call:


Python 2.5 (r25:51908, Sep 19 2006, 09:52:17) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from xmlrpclib import ServerProxy
>>> s = ServerProxy("http://google.com")
>>> print s.somecall
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "c:\python25\lib\xmlrpclib.py", line 1147, in __call__
    return self.__send(self.__name, args)
  File "c:\python25\lib\xmlrpclib.py", line 1437, in __request
    verbose=self.__verbose
  File "c:\python25\lib\xmlrpclib.py", line 1191, in request
    headers
xmlrpclib.ProtocolError: <ProtocolError for google.com/RPC2: 501 Not Implemented


Similarly:

>>> f = s.somecall
>>> locals()
{'f': Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "c:\python25\lib\xmlrpclib.py", line 1147, in __call__
    return self.__send(self.__name, args)
  File "c:\python25\lib\xmlrpclib.py", line 1437, in __request
    verbose=self.__verbose
  File "c:\python25\lib\xmlrpclib.py", line 1191, in request
    headers
xmlrpclib.ProtocolError: <ProtocolError for google.com/RPC2: 501 Not Implemented>

What would you rather seem them print?

This would be reasonable:

>>> from xmlrpclib import ServerProxy
>>> s = ServerProxy("http://google.com")
>>> print s.somecall
<xmlrpclib._Method object at 0x00C08470>

Similarly:

>>> f = s.somecall
>>> locals()
{'f': <xmlrpclib._Method object at 0x00BA8030>, '__builtins__': <module '__built
in__' (built-in)>, 's': <ServerProxy for google.com/RPC2>, '__name__': '__main__
', 'ServerProxy': <class xmlrpclib.ServerProxy at 0x00C61AE0>, '__doc__': None}

Bonus points for:
<xmlrpclib _Method somecall of <ServerProxy for google.com/RPC2>>

Fredrik, you originally wrote xmlrpclib: any objections to stringifying _Method objects to something like "<xmlrpclib _Method somecall at 0x4636e346>"?

I'm trying to think of a reason for actually providing __repr__ over
RPC, but I cannot find any.  Not quite as sure about __str__, though; I
suggest adding a __repr__ method, but leaving the rest as is.

How about making ServerProxy a new-style class?

I think __str__ should also be implemented.
I'm attaching a patch with unittests against current trunk.

this is how it looks:

~/pydev/trunk/ python                                              
ralf@red ok
Python 2.6b1+ (trunk, Jul  3 2008, 12:43:37) 
[GCC 4.3.1] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from xmlrpclib import Server
>>> Server("http://localhost:8000").doit
<xmlrpclib._Method doit <bound method ServerProxy.__request of
<ServerProxy for localhost:8000/RPC2>>>

This has been fixed in py3k but not 2.7.  Is it worth backporting the change?