# module `concrete.fhe.representation.utils`
Declaration of various functions and constants related to representation of computation.
**Global Variables**
---------------
- **KWARGS_IGNORED_IN_FORMATTING**
- **SPECIAL_OBJECT_MAPPING**
- **NODES_THAT_HAVE_TLU_WHEN_ALL_INPUTS_ARE_ENCRYPTED**
---
## function `format_constant`
```python
format_constant(
constant: Any,
maximum_length: int = 45,
keep_newlines: bool = False
) → str
```
Get the textual representation of a constant.
**Args:**
constant (Any): constant to format
maximum_length (int, default = 45): maximum length of the resulting string
keep_newlines (bool, default = False): whether to keep newlines or not
**Returns:**
str: textual representation of `constant`
---
## function `format_indexing_element`
```python
format_indexing_element(indexing_element: Union[int, integer, slice, Any])
```
Format an indexing element.
This is required mainly for slices. The reason is that string representation of slices are very long and verbose. To give an example, `x[:, 2:]` will have the following index `[slice(None, None, None), slice(2, None, None)]` if printed naively. With this helper, it will be formatted as `[:, 2:]`.
**Args:**
indexing_element (Union[int, np.integer, slice]): indexing element to format
**Returns:**
str: textual representation of `indexing_element`