At the risk of coming across as a complete dunder-head, I think my confusion has to do with the type of data the library returns in the list. Any kind of text or integer list I manually create, doesn't do this.
See my questions down below at the end. If I run the following statements on the list returned by the gedcom library: print(type(myList)) print(len(myList)) print(myList[0]) print(myList[0:29]) print(myList) for x in myList: print(x) I get this: <class 'list'> 29 0 HEAD [<gedcom.Element object at 0x0135BFD0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372030>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372050>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013720B0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013720F0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372130>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372190>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013721F0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372270>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372230>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013722F0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013722B0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372370>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372390>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372410>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372470>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372490>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013724F0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372530>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372590>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013725F0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372630>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372690>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013726F0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372710>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372770>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372790>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013727D0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372830>] [<gedcom.Element object at 0x0135BFD0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372030>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372050>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013720B0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013720F0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372130>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372190>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013721F0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372270>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372230>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013722F0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013722B0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372370>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372390>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372410>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372470>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372490>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013724F0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372530>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372590>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013725F0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372630>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372690>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013726F0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372710>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372770>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372790>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x013727D0>, <gedcom.Element object at 0x01372830>] 0 HEAD 1 SOUR AncestQuest 2 NAME Ancestral Quest 2 VERS 14.00.9 2 CORP Incline Software, LC 3 ADDR PO Box 95543 4 CONT South Jordan, UT 84095 4 CONT USA 1 DATE 3 MAY 2016 2 TIME 10:44:10 1 FILE test_gedcom.ged 1 GEDC 2 VERS 5.5 2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED 1 CHAR ANSEL 0 @I1@ INDI 1 NAME John /Allen/ 1 SEX M 1 BIRT 2 DATE 1750 2 PLAC VA 1 DEAT 2 DATE 1804 2 PLAC KY 1 _UID D6C103E6105D654B85D47DA1B36E474BC7D1 1 CHAN 2 DATE 3 MAY 2016 3 TIME 10:43:35 0 TRLR Questions: Why does printing a single item print the actual text of the object? Why does printing a range print the "representations" of the objects? Why does iterating over the list print the actual text of the objects? How can I determine what type of data is in the list? -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list