title: How to make __repr__ to return unicode string
body: <p>I call a <code>__repr__()</code> function on object <code>x</code> as follows:</p>
  
  <p><code>val = x.__repr__()</code></p>
  
  <p>and then I want to store <code>val</code> string to <code>SQLite</code> database. The problem is
  that <code>val</code> should be unicode.</p>
  
  <p>I tried this with no success:</p>
  
  <p><code>val = x.__repr__().encode("utf-8")</code></p>
  
  <p>and</p>
  
  <p><code>val = unicode(x.__repr__())</code></p>
  
  <p>Do you know how to correct this?</p>
  
  <p>I'm using <code>Python 2.7.2</code></p>