bpo-28626: rearrange discussion of output formatting to encourage f-strings (#6036)
The 'output formatting' section of the tutorial talks a lot about manual formatting with things like .rjust() and .zfill(), with only a passing reference to 3.6's new f-strings. This doesn't drop all of the old material, but it does rearrange the topics into a more modern order: f-strings first, discussing formatting specifiers a bit; then calling .format(); finally manual formatting with .ljust().
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Andrew Kuchling
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@ -20,20 +20,39 @@ of file objects; the standard output file can be referenced as ``sys.stdout``.
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See the Library Reference for more information on this.)
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Often you'll want more control over the formatting of your output than simply
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printing space-separated values. There are two ways to format your output; the
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first way is to do all the string handling yourself; using string slicing and
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concatenation operations you can create any layout you can imagine. The
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string type has some methods that perform useful operations for padding
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strings to a given column width; these will be discussed shortly. The second
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way is to use :ref:`formatted string literals <f-strings>`, or the
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:meth:`str.format` method.
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printing space-separated values. There are several ways to format output.
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The :mod:`string` module contains a :class:`~string.Template` class which offers
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yet another way to substitute values into strings.
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* To use :ref:`formatted string literals <tut-f-strings>`, begin a string
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with ``f`` or ``F`` before the opening quotation mark or triple quotation mark.
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Inside this string, you can write a Python expression between ``{`` and ``}``
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characters that can refer to variables or literal values.
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One question remains, of course: how do you convert values to strings? Luckily,
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Python has ways to convert any value to a string: pass it to the :func:`repr`
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or :func:`str` functions.
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::
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>>> year = 2016 ; event = 'Referendum'
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>>> f'Results of the {year} {event}'
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'Results of the 2016 Referendum'
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* The :meth:`str.format` method of strings requires more manual
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effort. You'll still use ``{`` and ``}`` to mark where a variable
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will be substituted and can provide detailed formatting directives,
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but you'll also need to provide the information to be formatted.
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::
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>>> yes_votes = 42_572_654 ; no_votes = 43_132_495
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>>> percentage = (yes_votes/(yes_votes+no_votes)
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>>> '{:-9} YES votes {:2.2%}'.format(yes_votes, percentage))
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' 42572654 YES votes 49.67%'
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* Finally, you can do all the string handling yourself by using string slicing and
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concatenation operations to create any layout you can imagine. The
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string type has some methods that perform useful operations for padding
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strings to a given column width.
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When you don't need fancy output but just want a quick display of some
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variables for debugging purposes, you can convert any value to a string with
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the :func:`repr` or :func:`str` functions.
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The :func:`str` function is meant to return representations of values which are
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fairly human-readable, while :func:`repr` is meant to generate representations
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@ -67,60 +86,57 @@ Some examples::
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... repr((x, y, ('spam', 'eggs')))
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"(32.5, 40000, ('spam', 'eggs'))"
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Here are two ways to write a table of squares and cubes::
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The :mod:`string` module contains a :class:`~string.Template` class that offers
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yet another way to substitute values into strings, using placeholders like
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``$x`` and replacing them with values from a dictionary, but offers much less
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control of the formatting.
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>>> for x in range(1, 11):
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... print(repr(x).rjust(2), repr(x*x).rjust(3), end=' ')
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... # Note use of 'end' on previous line
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... print(repr(x*x*x).rjust(4))
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.. _tut-f-strings:
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Formatted String Literals
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-------------------------
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:ref:`Formatted string literals <f-strings>` (also called f-strings for
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short) let you include the value of Python expressions inside a string by
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prefixing the string with ``f`` or ``F`` and writing expressions as
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``{expression}``.
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An optional format specifier can follow the expression. This allows greater
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control over how the value is formatted. The following example rounds pi to
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three places after the decimal::
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>>> import math
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>>> print(f'The value of pi is approximately {math.pi:.3f}.')
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Passing an integer after the ``':'`` will cause that field to be a minimum
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number of characters wide. This is useful for making columns line up. ::
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>>> table = {'Sjoerd': 4127, 'Jack': 4098, 'Dcab': 7678}
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>>> for name, phone in table.items():
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... print(f'{name:10} ==> {phone:10d}')
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...
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1 1 1
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2 4 8
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3 9 27
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4 16 64
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5 25 125
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6 36 216
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7 49 343
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8 64 512
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9 81 729
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10 100 1000
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Sjoerd ==> 4127
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Jack ==> 4098
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Dcab ==> 7678
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>>> for x in range(1, 11):
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... print('{0:2d} {1:3d} {2:4d}'.format(x, x*x, x*x*x))
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...
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1 1 1
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2 4 8
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3 9 27
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4 16 64
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5 25 125
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6 36 216
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7 49 343
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8 64 512
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9 81 729
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10 100 1000
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Other modifiers can be used to convert the value before it is formatted.
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``'!a'`` applies :func:`ascii`, ``'!s'`` applies :func:`str`, and ``'!r'``
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applies :func:`repr`::
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(Note that in the first example, one space between each column was added by the
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way :func:`print` works: by default it adds spaces between its arguments.)
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>>> animals = 'eels'
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>>> print(f'My hovercraft is full of {animals}.')
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My hovercraft is full of eels.
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>>> print('My hovercraft is full of {animals !r}.')
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My hovercraft is full of 'eels'.
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This example demonstrates the :meth:`str.rjust` method of string
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objects, which right-justifies a string in a field of a given width by padding
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it with spaces on the left. There are similar methods :meth:`str.ljust` and
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:meth:`str.center`. These methods do not write anything, they just return a
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new string. If the input string is too long, they don't truncate it, but
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return it unchanged; this will mess up your column lay-out but that's usually
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better than the alternative, which would be lying about a value. (If you
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really want truncation you can always add a slice operation, as in
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``x.ljust(n)[:n]``.)
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For a reference on these format specifications, see
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the reference guide for the :ref:`formatspec`.
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There is another method, :meth:`str.zfill`, which pads a numeric string on the
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left with zeros. It understands about plus and minus signs::
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.. _tut-string-format:
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>>> '12'.zfill(5)
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'00012'
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>>> '-3.14'.zfill(7)
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'-003.14'
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>>> '3.14159265359'.zfill(5)
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'3.14159265359'
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The String format() Method
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--------------------------
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Basic usage of the :meth:`str.format` method looks like this::
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@ -150,34 +166,6 @@ Positional and keyword arguments can be arbitrarily combined::
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other='Georg'))
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The story of Bill, Manfred, and Georg.
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``'!a'`` (apply :func:`ascii`), ``'!s'`` (apply :func:`str`) and ``'!r'``
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(apply :func:`repr`) can be used to convert the value before it is formatted::
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>>> contents = 'eels'
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>>> print('My hovercraft is full of {}.'.format(contents))
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My hovercraft is full of eels.
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>>> print('My hovercraft is full of {!r}.'.format(contents))
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My hovercraft is full of 'eels'.
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An optional ``':'`` and format specifier can follow the field name. This allows
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greater control over how the value is formatted. The following example
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rounds Pi to three places after the decimal.
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>>> import math
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>>> print('The value of PI is approximately {0:.3f}.'.format(math.pi))
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The value of PI is approximately 3.142.
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Passing an integer after the ``':'`` will cause that field to be a minimum
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number of characters wide. This is useful for making tables pretty. ::
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>>> table = {'Sjoerd': 4127, 'Jack': 4098, 'Dcab': 7678}
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>>> for name, phone in table.items():
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... print('{0:10} ==> {1:10d}'.format(name, phone))
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...
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Jack ==> 4098
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Dcab ==> 7678
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Sjoerd ==> 4127
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If you have a really long format string that you don't want to split up, it
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would be nice if you could reference the variables to be formatted by name
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instead of by position. This can be done by simply passing the dict and using
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@ -198,10 +186,71 @@ notation. ::
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This is particularly useful in combination with the built-in function
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:func:`vars`, which returns a dictionary containing all local variables.
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As an example, the following lines produce a tidily-aligned
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set of columns giving integers and their squares and cubes::
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>>> for x in range(1, 11):
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... print('{0:2d} {1:3d} {2:4d}'.format(x, x*x, x*x*x))
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...
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1 1 1
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2 4 8
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3 9 27
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4 16 64
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5 25 125
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6 36 216
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7 49 343
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8 64 512
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9 81 729
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10 100 1000
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For a complete overview of string formatting with :meth:`str.format`, see
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:ref:`formatstrings`.
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Manual String Formatting
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------------------------
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Here's the same table of squares and cubes, formatted manually::
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>>> for x in range(1, 11):
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... print(repr(x).rjust(2), repr(x*x).rjust(3), end=' ')
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... # Note use of 'end' on previous line
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... print(repr(x*x*x).rjust(4))
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...
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1 1 1
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2 4 8
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3 9 27
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4 16 64
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5 25 125
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6 36 216
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7 49 343
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8 64 512
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9 81 729
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10 100 1000
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(Note that the one space between each column was added by the
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way :func:`print` works: it always adds spaces between its arguments.)
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The :meth:`str.rjust` method of string objects right-justifies a string in a
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field of a given width by padding it with spaces on the left. There are
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similar methods :meth:`str.ljust` and :meth:`str.center`. These methods do
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not write anything, they just return a new string. If the input string is too
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long, they don't truncate it, but return it unchanged; this will mess up your
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column lay-out but that's usually better than the alternative, which would be
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lying about a value. (If you really want truncation you can always add a
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slice operation, as in ``x.ljust(n)[:n]``.)
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There is another method, :meth:`str.zfill`, which pads a numeric string on the
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left with zeros. It understands about plus and minus signs::
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>>> '12'.zfill(5)
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'00012'
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>>> '-3.14'.zfill(7)
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'-003.14'
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>>> '3.14159265359'.zfill(5)
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'3.14159265359'
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Old string formatting
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---------------------
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@ -211,8 +260,8 @@ to the right argument, and returns the string resulting from this formatting
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operation. For example::
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>>> import math
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>>> print('The value of PI is approximately %5.3f.' % math.pi)
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The value of PI is approximately 3.142.
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>>> print('The value of pi is approximately %5.3f.' % math.pi)
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The value of pi is approximately 3.142.
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More information can be found in the :ref:`old-string-formatting` section.
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