Python: why __str__ not call recursive?

Question

I have some troubles when convert dict to JSON object. I have this class:

class ServerResponse(object):

    status = None
    code = None
    message = None
    data = None

    OK_STATUS = True
    ERROR_STATUS = False

    OK_CODE = 200

    def __init__(self, status=OK_STATUS, code=OK_CODE, message=None, data=None, *args, **kwargs):
        self.status = status
        self.code = code
        self.message = message
        self.data = data

    def to_dict(self):
        fields = {
            "status": self.status,
            "code": self.code,
            "message": self.message,
            "data": str(self.data),
        }

        return fields

    def to_json(self):
        return json.dumps(self.to_dict())

    def __str__(self):
        return self.to_json()

I use this class for generate server answer.

from server_response import ServerResponse as Response
...
return_data = {}

for (name, content) in result.items():
    if not previous_hashes or client.is_data_change(previous_hashes[name], data['hash']):
        return_data[name] = Response(data=content)
    else:
        return_data[name] = Response(code=201, message="Data has not changed")

response = Response(data=return_data)
...
self.write(str(response))

In answer from server I get next JSON

{u'status': True, u'message': None, u'code': 200, u'data': u"{'client': <server_response.ServerResponse object at 0x14e9710>, 'service': <server_response.ServerResponse object at 0x14e90d0>}"}

Why __str__ function don't call recursively?

Answer 1

From this program:

class Foo(object):
    def __repr__(self):
        return "REPR"

    def __str__(self):
        return "STR"

x = {}

x['client'] = Foo()

print str(x)
print repr(x)

You can see that dict always calls repr on its members, regardless of whether str or repr was used on the dict.