{"action":"opened","issue":{"url":"https://api.github.com/repos/astropy/astropy/issues/3806","labels_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/astropy/astropy/issues/3806/labels{/name}","comments_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/astropy/astropy/issues/3806/comments","events_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/astropy/astropy/issues/3806/events","html_url":"https://github.com/astropy/astropy/issues/3806","id":83129114,"number":3806,"title":"Unicode column types not intuitive in table repr output?","user":{"login":"astrofrog","id":314716,"avatar_url":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/314716?v=3","gravatar_id":"","url":"https://api.github.com/users/astrofrog","html_url":"https://github.com/astrofrog","followers_url":"https://api.github.com/users/astrofrog/followers","following_url":"https://api.github.com/users/astrofrog/following{/other_user}","gists_url":"https://api.github.com/users/astrofrog/gists{/gist_id}","starred_url":"https://api.github.com/users/astrofrog/starred{/owner}{/repo}","subscriptions_url":"https://api.github.com/users/astrofrog/subscriptions","organizations_url":"https://api.github.com/users/astrofrog/orgs","repos_url":"https://api.github.com/users/astrofrog/repos","events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/astrofrog/events{/privacy}","received_events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/astrofrog/received_events","type":"User","site_admin":false},"labels":[{"url":"https://api.github.com/repos/astropy/astropy/labels/table","name":"table","color":"c7def8"}],"state":"open","locked":false,"assignee":{"login":"taldcroft","id":348089,"avatar_url":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/348089?v=3","gravatar_id":"","url":"https://api.github.com/users/taldcroft","html_url":"https://github.com/taldcroft","followers_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taldcroft/followers","following_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taldcroft/following{/other_user}","gists_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taldcroft/gists{/gist_id}","starred_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taldcroft/starred{/owner}{/repo}","subscriptions_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taldcroft/subscriptions","organizations_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taldcroft/orgs","repos_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taldcroft/repos","events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taldcroft/events{/privacy}","received_events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taldcroft/received_events","type":"User","site_admin":false},"milestone":null,"comments":0,"created_at":"2015-05-31T16:31:54Z","updated_at":"2015-05-31T16:31:54Z","closed_at":null,"body":"For string columns in tables, the datatype shown in the repr or repr_html output is a bit strange:\r\n\r\n![screen shot 2015-05-31 at 6 29 53 pm](https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/314716/7902730/1ae08b0e-07c3-11e5-9f91-de3e63d307aa.png)\r\n\r\nThis is because these are unicode columns (in Python 3). The 'real' dtype is:\r\n\r\n```\r\ndtype([('name', '<U4'), ('obs_date', '<U10'), ('mag_b', '<f8'), ('mag_v', '<f8')])\r\n```\r\n\r\nCan we show U4 or unicode4 or something similar instead?"}}