richprinted

A drop-in, dependency-light replacement for Python's print() that adds smart type detection, color themes (to be added), and structured, readable output for terminals.

richprinted is designed to feel exactly like print() — until you need more. Pass it a list, a dict, or a primitive, and it figures out how to format it well. Need more control? Every formatter accepts a rich set of keyword arguments for filtering, sorting, truncating, and styling output.

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Features

• Callable singleton — use rprint(...) just like print(...)
• Smart type detection — lists, dicts, and primitives are each formatted appropriately
• Highly configurable formatters — filter keys, sort, truncate, recolor, and reshape output per call
• Minimal dependencies — built to stay lightweight and terminal-friendly
• Composable internals — formatting logic lives in pure functions, easy to extend or reuse

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Installation

pip install richprinted

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Quick Start

from richprinted import rprint

# Works similarly to print() just makes it nicer
rprint("Hello, world!")

# Automatically detects and formats a list
rprint([1, 2, 3, "four", 5.0])

# Automatically detects and formats a dict
rprint({"name": "Toby", "role": "developer", "active": True})

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Usage

Basic printing

rprint("a plain string")
rprint(42)
rprint(True)
rprint(None)

richprinted detects the type of the value passed in and routes it to the appropriate formatter — no configuration needed for simple cases.

Possible kwargs for primitive formatting:

kwarg	description
nullstr	Custom string to represent None values
encoding	Encoding to apply/validate against when displaying the value
errors	Error handling mode for encoding issues (e.g. "strict", "ignore", "replace")
truncate	Truncate long values to a maximum length
prefix	String prepended before the formatted value
suffix	String appended after the formatted value

Formatting lists

rprint([5, 3, 1, 4, 2], sort=True)
rprint(list(range(20)), maxlength=10)

kwarg	description
sorting	Sort the list before display
encoding	Encoding to apply/validate against for string items
showonly	Restrict display to only specific items
startat	Index to start numbering from (0 or 1 indexing)
errors	Error handling mode for encoding issues
nullstr	Custom string to represent None values
truncate	Truncate long individual items
maxlength	Truncate output after N items, showing ... (X more)
show_indices	Display each item's index alongside its value
groupby	Group items by their type

Formatting dictionaries

rprint(
    {"id": 1, "name": "Toby", "password": "secret", "active": True},
    exclude=["password"],
    style="block",
)

kwarg	description
maxlength	Truncate to N key-value pairs
nullstr	Custom string to represent None values
truncate	Truncate long values
sort	Sort entries by key
sort_by	Sort entries either by values or keys
reverse	Reverse display order, used with sort
showonly	Restrict display to only specific keys
exclude	Blocklist specific keys from display
style	Output format - either "inline" or "block"

Utility methods

Beyond the callable interface, richprinted exposes utility methods for more structured output:

rprint.table(data)       # Render tabular data
rprint.banner("Done!")   # Print a styled banner/header
rprint.inspect(obj)      # Inspect an object's attributes and structure
rprint.diff(old, new)    # Show a structured diff between two values

Note: Utility methods are currently under active development. They have not been yet implemented into an official release.

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Project Structure

richprint/
├── .github/workflows
├── dist                     # Includes files to configure PyPI packaging
├── richprinted/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── core.py              # _RichPrinted singleton + __call__ dispatch, detection and other
│   └── formatters/
│       ├── __init__.py
│       └── formatter.py     # format_list, format_primitive, format_dictionary, ...
├── README.md
├── LICENCE
└── pyproject.toml

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Roadmap

• format_list
• format_primitive
• format_dictionary
• PyPI release
• Color theme and styling system
• Utility methods

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Contributing

This project is currently a solo effort, but issues, suggestions, and feedback are welcome to improve this python package!

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License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.