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Hello!
Working with Shelf instances in the interactive console is cumbersome because you can't have an instant feedback when running the following:
>>> from shelve import Shelf
>>> s = Shelf({})
>>> s['a'] = 1
>>> s
<shelve.Shelf object at 0x033D0AF0>
This patch adds an useful repr to Shelf objects.
>>> s
Shelf({'a': 1})
Thanks!

This may not be the right repr for the usual way of creating shelves:
 d = shelve.open('tmp.shl')
 print(repr(d)) # I would expect the repr to show 
 # the underlying db instead of all the
 # key/value pairs which can be passed
 # in the constructors

The problem is that the repr of the underlying db is not very helpful either, as seen for the dbm backend.
>>> import dbm
>>> dbm.open("test", "c")
<dbm.dumb._Database object at 0x03091FC0>
>>> f=_
>>> f[b"2"] = b"a"
>>> f
<dbm.dumb._Database object at 0x03091FC0>
>>>
But it shows the content of the underlying database, not the key / value pairs passed in the constructor:
>>> shelve.open("test1")
DbfilenameShelf({})
>>> f=_
>>> f["2"] = "4"
>>> f
DbfilenameShelf({'2': '4'})
>>> f["40"] = "50"
>>> f.dict
<dbm.dumb._Database object at 0x02ACC038>
>>> f.dict.keys()
[b'40', b'2']
>>>

I don't think this is right repr for shelve. As file's repr doesn't read and expose a content of a file, shelve's repr shouldn't read and expose all database content.

Fair point, Serhiy. But I see the shelve more similar to a persistent, dictionary-like object, than to a file. The fact that it uses some database behind is just an implementation detail.

When shelve stores its data on a disk, it is more similar to a file. After all, it can contain gigabytes of data, much larger than Python can address in RAM.
I you want more readable repr, I with Raymond, -- use the repr of the underlying db and add readable repr for dbm objects (including file name and open mode).

Alright, I agree with you now. You can close the issue if you want.