Override built-in classes, in particular, dictionary class

Question

I've never really liked the way the dictionary class is converted into a string so I wrote a subclass which overrides the __repr__ method (this method uses tabs to representing the level of nesting in the dictionary, mostly because I have some dictionaries which can be very big and end up myDic['a']['b']['c']['d'] = someObject).

It works fine, but it doesn't allow me to use the {} syntax to make my dictionaries.

Is it possible to override the dict class such that I can use the {} syntax to make my own custom dictionaries?

I am using python 2.6/2.7.

Answer 1

You can't override the {} syntax. You have to explicitly construct your variables using the class name.

If you just want it printed more nicely, would using pprint.pprint suffice?