Can somebody explain the special method __repr__?

repr and str are very similar in their purpose, however I learned (And this isn't by any means the only way to do it) that repr should be a representation of how the class is made. So for example:

class Value:
  def __init__(self, value):
    self.value = value

  def __str__(self):
    return str(self.value)

  def __repr__(self):
    return 'Value({})'.format(self.value)

The point of repr is to give representation to your object so when you or another developer checks it out in the console you're not just seeing a memory location.

I'd also take a guess that you're seeing a string that just looks like an int in the console when you inspect the object, but if not, something weird is going on.

Lastly, Python has some default behaviors that you should know about, if you create a class and only give it a repr, you can still use the str() method on your class, python looks for the repr if str doesn't exist. That brings me to your question of how repr works, all the dunder methods have "under the hood" behaviors that python uses, and I have no clue exactly how they all work, nor do I need to, and you probably don't either. What you should know is that python uses repr to replace the default memory location representation of your object with a representation of your object you give it.