Improper list format

[JL95741]

Environment

• Python version: v3.7
• Nautobot version: v1.3.3

Steps to Reproduce

data_list contains details on the device via webhook including hostname.

1. in Python:
   nautobot = self.nautobot_obj
   device_hostname = data_list.get('nethostname')
   devices = nautobot.dcim.devices
   device_obj = devices.filter(name=device_hostname)
   interface_list = interfaces.filter(device=device_hostname)

2.run the following in python:
print(type(interface_list))
print(interface_list)

Expected Behavior

<class 'list'>
['Ethernet1/1', 'Ethernet1/2']

Observed Behavior

<class 'list'>
[Ethernet1/1, Ethernet1/2]

[glennmatthews]

Hi, thanks for the report. I'm not entirely certain I understand the described issue though. What are self.nautobot_obj and data_list? Are you using pynautobot or some other API client?

[jvanderaa]

This does look like pynautobot. And the list is a list of objects. There is a string representation of these.

[jvanderaa]

@JL95741 does this make sense?

[lampwins]

@JL95741 this is normal, expected behavior. Your interface_list is a collection of pynautobot.models.dcim.Interfaces instances, not strings. I think the confusion, in this case, is that the __repr__ of a Record in pynautobot is str(self) and __str__ of Interfaces is the display attribute in the API, which is just the name of the interface.

So while it looks like print(interface_list) is supposed to be printing a list of strings, it is, in fact printing a list of object representations.

If you wanted to get the list of names as strings, you could do something like this:

interface_names = [i.name for i in interfaces.filter(device=device_hostname)]

@nautobot/pynautobot, perhaps we can take this as feedback to change the Record __repr__ to include the class name?

[jvanderaa]

Makes sense to make the change in fact. I'll add that to the next milestone. Would that be a breaking change? I don't think it would @lampwins

[lampwins]

I would not consider modification of a __repr__ to be a breaking change.

[jvanderaa]

Closing for #67