{"id":6606,"date":"2019-01-16T08:05:25","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T08:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jquery-az.com\/?p=6606"},"modified":"2019-01-16T08:05:25","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T08:05:25","slug":"python-string-formatting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jquery-az.com\/python-string-formatting\/","title":{"rendered":"How to print formatted string in Python?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Python has a basic way for formatting strings just like in other programming languages. The <strong>\u2018%\u2019<\/strong> or modulus operator (percentage sign) is generally supported in many languages and so in Python.<\/p>\n<p>Besides, Python also has other ways for string formatting. In this tutorial, we will look at \u2018%\u2019 operator and string.format() function for string formatting in Python in this tutorial.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>First Way: Using \u2018%\u2019 for string formatting<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The basic string formatting can be done by using the \u2018%\u2019 operator. This is an old style that you might be familiar with if you have background with C language. Python also supports this but you may want using the newly available method for string formatting (explained in next section).<\/p>\n<p>The example below shows how \u2018%\u2019 operator works:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"python\">#A demo of string formatting with %\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nf_name = \"Mike\"\r\n\r\nl_name = \"Anthony\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nformatted_str = 'The first name is %s and second name is %s' % (f_name, l_name)\r\n\r\nprint (formatted_str)<\/pre>\n<p><strong>The output:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The first name ss Mike and second name is Anthony<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In the code, you can see I used<strong> %s<\/strong> that represents a value as a string. This is followed by using variable name in parenthesis in the same sequence as you would like to replace the %s with string variable values.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You may use various directives for formatting:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>%s<\/strong> is used for strings<\/li>\n<li><strong>%d<\/strong> for decimal integers<\/li>\n<li><strong>%i<\/strong> for integers<\/li>\n<li><strong>%f<\/strong> for float<\/li>\n<li><strong>%x<\/strong> for Hexadecimal integers<\/li>\n<li><strong>%o<\/strong> for octal integer<\/li>\n<li><strong>%u<\/strong> for unsigned integer<\/li>\n<li><strong>%e<\/strong> for float exponent<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>Using integer and float along with string objects example<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>In this example, I also used <strong>%d<\/strong> for integer and <strong>%f<\/strong> for a float along with<strong> %s<\/strong> for string representation. For that, I used three object variables that hold Name, age and salary of an employee (for the demo only):<\/p>\n<pre class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"python\">#A demo of string formatting with %\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nstr_name = \"Mike\"\r\n\r\nage = 35\r\n\r\nsalary = 5000.00\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nformatted_str = 'Employee Name is %s, age is %i and salary is %1.2f!' % (str_name, age, salary)\r\n\r\nprint (formatted_str)<\/pre>\n<p><strong>The output of the above code is:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Employee Name is Mike, age is 35 and salary is 5000.00!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3><strong>Using a list example<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>You may also use a list as shown in the example below:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"python\">amount_paid = [4000, 4000, 4500, 4500, 5000]\r\n\r\nemp_name = \"Mike\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nemp_record = \"Employee Name is %s. The paid amount are: %s\" % (emp_name, amount_paid)\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nprint (emp_record)<\/pre>\n<p><strong>The result:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Employee Name is Mike. The paid amount are: [4000, 4000, 4500, 4500, 5000]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3><strong>Second way: Using string string.format method<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The second and more usable way of formatting strings in Python is the <strong>str.format<\/strong> function which is part of the string class. The general syntax for using the str.format function is:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>format(value[, format_spec])<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In this way of string formatting, we use placeholders in the string object. The placeholder is in the form of curly braces i.e. <strong>{}.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>First, have a look at this simple example of the str.format method and I will explain later how it works:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"python\">#A demo of string formatting with str.format() function\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nfmt = \"String Format Tutorial\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nprint(\"Python {} Tutorial.\".format(\"Formatting\"))\r\n\r\nprint(\"The {}.\".format(fmt))<\/pre>\n<p><strong>The output:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6607\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jquery-az.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/87.1-Python-string-format.png\" alt=\"Python string format\" width=\"230\" height=\"76\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In the example above, you can see the string formatting is done in two ways. First, a value is given in the format function. The other print function uses a variable for substitution of the place-holder.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>An example of using multiple pairs of curly braces<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>You may also use multiple placeholders for formatting strings i.e. pairs of curly braces.<\/p>\n<pre class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"python\">#A demo str.format with multiple placeholders\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nprint(\"Demo with {} {}.\" .format(\"multiple\", \"place-holders\"))<\/pre>\n<p><strong>The result:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Demo with multiple place-holders.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, you may use more than one value or variables in the format function that are separated by a comma. The substitution is done in the same order as per place-holder in the calling string, however, you may also provide a position as shown in the example below.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>The example of using positional arguments<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The demo below shows how to use positional arguments in the string format function. In the place-holder, i.e. within the curly braces, you may provide the number according to the argument in the format function.<\/p>\n<p>See an example below and I will explain more:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"python\">#A demo of str.format with positional arguments\r\n\r\nemp_name = \"Sarah\"\r\n\r\nemp_sal = 5000\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nprint(\"Employee Name is {0}, Salary is {1}.\".format(\"Mike\", 4500))\r\n\r\nprint(\"Employee Name is {1}, Salary is {0}.\".format(emp_sal, emp_name))<\/pre>\n<p><strong>The output:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Employee Name is Mike, Salary is 4500.<\/p>\n<p>Employee Name is Sarah, Salary is 5000.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>A few points to learn from the above example:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We used values and object variables in the format function as arguments.<\/li>\n<li>In the first print function, I used 0 and 1 and the result is displayed in the same order as I sent arguments. That is, Mike and 4500 in the output formatted string.<\/li>\n<li>In the second print function, the order is 1 and 0. The first argument in the format function is emp_sal which is equal to 0 and emp_name = 1. So, in the output string, the emp_name variable value is replaced with {1} and salary by {0}.<\/li>\n<li>In that way, you may control the usage of argument position in the formatted string.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>Using keyword argument example<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Not only you may provide the numbers in the curly braces but you may refer the arguments by <strong>keywords<\/strong> as well \u2013 thus making code cleaner. Have a look at the code and output below:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"python\">#A demo of str.format with keyword arguments\r\n\r\nemp_name = \"Haynes\"\r\n\r\nemp_sal = 7500\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n#using values with keywords\r\n\r\nprint(\"Employee Name is {emp}, Salary is {sal}.\".format(emp = \"Michelle\", sal = 6500))\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n#Using variables with keywords\r\n\r\nprint(\"Employee Name is {emp}, Salary is {sal}.\".format(sal = emp_sal, emp = emp_name))<\/pre>\n<p><strong>The output:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Employee Name is Michelle, Salary is 6500.<\/p>\n<p>Employee Name is Haynes, Salary is 7500.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There, you can see I used {emp} and {sal} to refer these keywords in the format function. Inside the format function, I used values as well as variables with keywords.<\/p>\n<p>You may also notice, the order is not important as calling in the placeholder than the sequence of the format function arguments.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>An example of formatting date with string.format<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>You may format numbers like integers, float etc. as using the string.format function. I will show you in the examples below; first, have a look at using various date directives for formatting dates using format function.<\/p>\n<pre class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"python\">import datetime\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\ncurrent_date = datetime.datetime.today()\r\n\r\ndt_fmt1 = '{:%a, %b %d %Y}'.format(current_date)\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\ndt_fmt2 = '{:%A, %B %d %Y}'.format(current_date)\r\n\r\ndt_fmt3 = '{:%m\/%d\/%Y}'.format(current_date)\r\n\r\ndt_fmt4 = '{:%d-%m-%Y}'.format(current_date)\r\n\r\ndt_fmt5 = '{:%m\/%d\/%y %H:%M %S}'.format(current_date)\r\n\r\ndt_fmt6 = '{:%m\/%d\/%y %I:%M %S %p}'.format(current_date)\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nprint(dt_fmt1)\r\n\r\nprint(dt_fmt2)\r\n\r\nprint(dt_fmt3)\r\n\r\nprint(dt_fmt4)\r\n\r\nprint(dt_fmt5)\r\n\r\nprint(dt_fmt6)<\/pre>\n<p><strong>The output as I executed this code:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jquery-az.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/87.2-string-format-date.png\" alt=\"string format date\" width=\"252\" height=\"122\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In the example, I used datetime module and get the current date by datetime\u2019s today() function. This value is used in the format function with various date directives for formatting.<\/p>\n<p>You may learn more about date formatting options in its tutorial: <a href=\"\/python-strftime\/\">Python date formatting<\/a><\/p>\n<h3><strong>How to perform formatting for numbers using format function?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>By using format specifiers for numbers, you may also format numbers by using the format() function. A list of specifiers used with % operator is given in the above section. As using the format() function, the specifier is used without \u2018%\u2019 operator.<\/p>\n<p>A few commonly used number specifiers\/conversion characters are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>d<\/strong> is used for decimal integers<\/li>\n<li><strong>b<\/strong> for binary format<\/li>\n<li><strong>o<\/strong> for octal format<\/li>\n<li><strong>x<\/strong> is for the hexadecimal format (lowercase letters)<\/li>\n<li><strong>X for hexadecimal (uppercase letters)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>f<\/strong> for floating point number which is fixed. The default is 6 precision.<\/li>\n<li><strong>c<\/strong> for character<\/li>\n<li><strong>e<\/strong> is for exponent notation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The syntax for using a specifier is in the format function is as follows:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>String {field_name:specifier} str.format(value\/variable)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3><strong>An example of int and float conversion<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>This example uses int and float numbers in the place-holder:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"python\">print(\"Using decimal number = {:d}\".format(5000))\r\n\r\nprint(\"Float Number = {:f}\".format(5000))<\/pre>\n<p><strong>The output:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Using decimal number = 5000<\/p>\n<p>Float Number = 5000.000000<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3><strong>A float with 2 precision<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>In above example, you can see the float number is converted with 6 precision which is the default value. For changing the precision, you may do this as follows:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"EnlighterJSRAW\" data-enlighter-language=\"python\">print(\"Float Number with 2 precision = {:.2f}\".format(5555.475845))\r\n\r\nprint(\"Float Number with 3 precision = {:.3f}\".format(5555.784784))<\/pre>\n<p><strong>The result:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Float Number with 2 precision = 5555.48<\/p>\n<p>Float Number with 3 precision = 5555.785<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The \u2018%\u2019 or modulus operator is generally supported in many languages and so in Python. 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