# Human-readable but precise printing of data
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/human-readable-but-precise-printing-of-data/2212
**Category:** General Usage
**Tags:** question
**Created:** [February 21, 2017, 11:52am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/human-readable-but-precise-printing-of-data/2212 "2017-02-21T11:52:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2017, 11:52am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/human-readable-but-precise-printing-of-data/2212/1 "2017-02-21T11:52:47Z")
How should I print data in Julia so that
1. the output contains all the information (full precision for floats, type information for literals, etc),
2. the output is plain text.
Eg with `show`, type information and precision is lost:
```julia
julia> d = Dict(:a => √2, :b => fill(1/3, 3), :c => 1f0)
Dict{Symbol,Any} with 3 entries:
:c => 1.0
:a => 1.41421
:b => [0.333333,0.333333,0.333333]
```
while `serialize` does preserve everything, but is not plain text. I would be satisfied with something that handles everything but functions/closures.
---
### Author:  [@TsurHerman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/TsurHerman)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2017, 1:07pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/human-readable-but-precise-printing-of-data/2212/2 "2017-02-21T13:07:30Z")
Accidently I think I have an answer for you… just messed up with it a little bit myself.
So digging through the julia base I think this is what you are looking for:
```julia
sprintf_exact(x) = sprint(0,print,x; env = (:compact => false))
```
for your simple example it works.
lets validate it:
```julia
julia> d = Dict(:a => √2, :b => fill(1/3, 3), :c => 1f0);
julia> f = eval(parse(sprintf_exact(d)));
julia> f === d
false
julia> f == d
true
```
---
### Author:  [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2017, 1:16pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/human-readable-but-precise-printing-of-data/2212/3 "2017-02-21T13:16:35Z")
> [@TsurHerman](#):
>
> sprintf\_exact(x) = sprint(0,print,x; env = (:compact =\> false))
Thanks. I think that adding this as `print_parseable` or something similar would be worthwhile, but I need to understand Julia’s printing system in depth before opening an issue.
---
### Author:  [@TsurHerman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/TsurHerman)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2017, 1:20pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/human-readable-but-precise-printing-of-data/2212/4 "2017-02-21T13:20:57Z")
print is already parsable … I think it is by design.
to get full precision in print use:
`print(IOContext(STDOUT;compact = false) , 1/3)`
if you are not worried about precision then sprintf\_exact boils down to
`sprint(print,x)`
---
### Author:  [@fengyang.wang](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/fengyang.wang)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2017, 5:51am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/human-readable-but-precise-printing-of-data/2212/5 "2017-04-13T05:51:11Z")
I believe `repr(x)` (equivalent to `sprint(showall, x)`) and `showall(x)` are closer to what you want.
---
### Author:  [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2017, 8:56am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/human-readable-but-precise-printing-of-data/2212/6 "2017-07-14T08:56:16Z")
To revive this topic: I have been using
```julia
showfull(io, x) = show(IOContext(io; compact = false, limit = false), x)
showfull(x) = showfull(STDOUT, x)
```
for a while. Would inclusion in `Base` make sense?