Python object.__repr__(self) should be an expression?

Question

I was looking at the builtin object methods in the Python documentation, and I was interested in the documentation for object.__repr__(self). Here\'s what it sa

Answer 1

>>> from datetime import date
>>>
>>> repr(date.today())        # calls date.today().__repr__()
'datetime.date(2009, 1, 16)'
>>> eval(_)                   # _ is the output of the last command
datetime.date(2009, 1, 16)

The output is a string that can be parsed by the python interpreter and results in an equal object.

If that's not possible, it should return a string in the form of <...some useful description...>.