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pprint produces not very nice output for collections with a large number of short elements (see msg198556). For example pprint.pprint(list(range(40))) outputs more than 40 short lines, while print(repr(list(range(40)))) takes only 2 lines on 80-column terminal.
I propose to add new boolean option "compact". With compact=True pprint will try combine as much short one-line subelements in one line as possible. Every multiline element will be printed on separated lines.
Examples:
>>> pprint.pprint(list(range(40)), width=50, compact=True)
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,
 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25,
 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37,
 38, 39]
>>> pprint.pprint(['one string', 'other string', 'very very long string which continued on several lines', 'and again', 'and again', 'and again', 'and again'], width=50, compact=True)
['one string', 'other string',
 'very very long string which is continued on '
 'several lines',
 'and again', 'and again', 'and again',
 'and again']

I think it looks good on the principle.

I like it. If it isn't too difficult, I'd suggest that compact mode also indent the string continuation lines:
['one string', 'other string',
 'very very long string which is continued on '
 'several lines',
 'and again', 'and again', 'and again',
 'and again']

Here is a patch. Please review and correct the documentation.

> I'd suggest that compact mode also indent the string continuation lines:
Please open new issue for this.

As noted in the review, I'm not as keen on having dictionaries displayed in compact form.

Updated patch addresses David's comments. Thank you David.
> As noted in the review, I'm not as keen on having dictionaries displayed in compact form.
This makes sense. If no one will argue for compactifying mappings I'll remove this part of the patch.

> As noted in the review, I'm not as keen on having dictionaries displayed
> in compact form.
Agreed with David.

Updated patch doesn't compactify dicts.

New changeset ae0306c8f7a3 by Serhiy Storchaka in branch 'default':
Issue #19132: The pprint module now supports compact mode.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/ae0306c8f7a3 

Sorry I missed this on the review, but you are missing versionchanged tags (or versionadded, whichever you prefer :) and a what's new entry.

I had added a what's new entry.

New changeset 6e7b1aadea2f by Serhiy Storchaka in branch 'default':
Issue #19132: Add versionchanged tags.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/6e7b1aadea2f 

New changeset 60301b9982b2 by Terry Jan Reedy in branch '2.7':
Issue #21597: Turtledemo text pane can now be widened to view or copy complete
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/60301b9982b2
New changeset 0fb515063324 by Terry Jan Reedy in branch '3.4':
Issue #21597: Turtledemo text pane can now be widened to view or copy complete
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/0fb515063324