Python Language

String Formatting

Introduction#

When storing and transforming data for humans to see, string formatting can become very important. Python offers a wide variety of string formatting methods which are outlined in this topic.

Syntax#

  • ”{}“.format(42) ==> “42”
  • “{0}“.format(42) ==> “42”
  • “{0:.2f}“.format(42) ==> “42.00”
  • “{0:.0f}“.format(42.1234) ==> “42”
  • “{answer}“.format(no_answer=41, answer=42) ==> “42”
  • “{answer:.2f}“.format(no_answer=41, answer=42) ==> “42.00”
  • ”{[key]}“.format({‘key’: ‘value’}) ==> “value”
  • “{1}“.format([‘zero’, ‘one’, ‘two’]) ==> “one”
  • “{answer} = {answer}“.format(answer=42) ==> “42 = 42”
  • ’ ‘.join([‘stack’, ‘overflow’]) ==> “stack overflow”

Remarks#

  • Should check out PyFormat.info for a very thorough and gentle introduction/explanation of how it works.

Basics of String Formatting

foo = 1
bar = 'bar'
baz = 3.14

You can use str.format to format output. Bracket pairs are replaced with arguments in the order in which the arguments are passed:

print('{}, {} and {}'.format(foo, bar, baz))
# Out: "1, bar and 3.14"

Indexes can also be specified inside the brackets. The numbers correspond to indexes of the arguments passed to the str.format function (0-based).

print('{0}, {1}, {2}, and {1}'.format(foo, bar, baz))
# Out: "1, bar, 3.14, and bar"
print('{0}, {1}, {2}, and {3}'.format(foo, bar, baz))
# Out: index out of range error

Named arguments can be also used:

print("X value is: {x_val}. Y value is: {y_val}.".format(x_val=2, y_val=3))
# Out: "X value is: 2. Y value is: 3."

Object attributes can be referenced when passed into str.format:

class AssignValue(object):
    def __init__(self, value):
        self.value = value
my_value = AssignValue(6)
print('My value is: {0.value}'.format(my_value))  # "0" is optional
# Out: "My value is: 6"

Dictionary keys can be used as well:

my_dict = {'key': 6, 'other_key': 7}
print("My other key is: {0[other_key]}".format(my_dict))  # "0" is optional
# Out: "My other key is: 7"

Same applies to list and tuple indices:

my_list = ['zero', 'one', 'two']
print("2nd element is: {0[2]}".format(my_list))  # "0" is optional
# Out: "2nd element is: two"

Note: In addition to str.format, Python also provides the modulo operator %—also known as the string formatting or interpolation operator (see PEP 3101)—for formatting strings. str.format is a successor of % and it offers greater flexibility, for instance by making it easier to carry out multiple substitutions.

In addition to argument indexes, you can also include a format specification inside the curly brackets. This is an expression that follows special rules and must be preceded by a colon (:). See the docs for a full description of format specification. An example of format specification is the alignment directive :~^20 (^ stands for center alignment, total width 20, fill with ~ character):

'{:~^20}'.format('centered')
# Out: '~~~~~~centered~~~~~~'

format allows behaviour not possible with %, for example repetition of arguments:

t = (12, 45, 22222, 103, 6)
print '{0} {2} {1} {2} {3} {2} {4} {2}'.format(*t)    
# Out: 12 22222 45 22222 103 22222 6 22222

As format is a function, it can be used as an argument in other functions:

number_list = [12,45,78]
print map('the number is {}'.format, number_list)
# Out: ['the number is 12', 'the number is 45', 'the number is 78']   
    

from datetime import datetime,timedelta
    
once_upon_a_time = datetime(2010, 7, 1, 12, 0, 0)
delta = timedelta(days=13, hours=8,  minutes=20)
    
gen = (once_upon_a_time + x * delta for x in xrange(5))
    
print '\n'.join(map('{:%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S}'.format, gen))
#Out: 2010-07-01 12:00:00
#     2010-07-14 20:20:00
#     2010-07-28 04:40:00
#     2010-08-10 13:00:00
#     2010-08-23 21:20:00

Alignment and padding

The format() method can be used to change the alignment of the string. You have to do it with a format expression of the form :[fill_char][align_operator][width] where align_operator is one of:

  • < forces the field to be left-aligned within width.
  • > forces the field to be right-aligned within width.
  • ^ forces the field to be centered within width.
  • = forces the padding to be placed after the sign (numeric types only).

fill_char (if omitted default is whitespace) is the character used for the padding.

'{:~<9s}, World'.format('Hello')
# 'Hello~~~~, World'

'{:~>9s}, World'.format('Hello')
# '~~~~Hello, World'

'{:~^9s}'.format('Hello')
# '~~Hello~~'

'{:0=6d}'.format(-123)
# '-00123'

Note: you could achieve the same results using the string functions ljust(), rjust(), center(), zfill(), however these functions are deprecated since version 2.5.

Format literals (f-string)

Literal format strings were introduced in PEP 498 (Python3.6 and upwards), allowing you to prepend f to the beginning of a string literal to effectively apply .format to it with all variables in the current scope.

>>> foo = 'bar'
>>> f'Foo is {foo}'
'Foo is bar'

This works with more advanced format strings too, including alignment and dot notation.

>>> f'{foo:^7s}'
'  bar  '

Note: The f'' does not denote a particular type like b'' for bytes or u'' for unicode in python2. The formating is immediately applied, resulting in a normal stirng.

The format strings can also be nested:

>>> price = 478.23
>>> f"{f'${price:0.2f}':*>20s}"
'*************$478.23'

The expressions in an f-string are evaluated in left-to-right order. This is detectable only if the expressions have side effects:

>>> def fn(l, incr):
...    result = l[0]
...    l[0] += incr
...    return result
...
>>> lst = [0]
>>> f'{fn(lst,2)} {fn(lst,3)}'
'0 2'
>>> f'{fn(lst,2)} {fn(lst,3)}'
'5 7'
>>> lst
[10]

String formatting with datetime

Any class can configure its own string formatting syntax through the __format__ method. A type in the standard Python library that makes handy use of this is the datetime type, where one can use strftime-like formatting codes directly within str.format:

>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> 'North America: {dt:%m/%d/%Y}.  ISO: {dt:%Y-%m-%d}.'.format(dt=datetime.now())
'North America: 07/21/2016.  ISO: 2016-07-21.'

A full list of list of datetime formatters can be found in the official documenttion.

Format using Getitem and Getattr

Any data structure that supports __getitem__ can have their nested structure formatted:

person = {'first': 'Arthur', 'last': 'Dent'} 
'{p[first]} {p[last]}'.format(p=person) 
# 'Arthur Dent'

Object attributes can be accessed using getattr():

class Person(object):
    first = 'Zaphod'
    last = 'Beeblebrox'

'{p.first} {p.last}'.format(p=Person())
# 'Zaphod Beeblebrox'

Float formatting

>>> '{0:.0f}'.format(42.12345)
'42'

>>> '{0:.1f}'.format(42.12345)
'42.1'

>>> '{0:.3f}'.format(42.12345)
'42.123'

>>> '{0:.5f}'.format(42.12345)
'42.12345'

>>> '{0:.7f}'.format(42.12345)
'42.1234500'

Same hold for other way of referencing:

>>> '{:.3f}'.format(42.12345)
'42.123'

>>> '{answer:.3f}'.format(answer=42.12345)
'42.123'

Floating point numbers can also be formatted in scientific notation or as percentages:

>>> '{0:.3e}'.format(42.12345)
'4.212e+01'

>>> '{0:.0%}'.format(42.12345)
'4212%'

You can also combine the {0} and {name} notations. This is especially useful when you want to round all variables to a pre-specified number of decimals with 1 declaration:

>>> s = 'Hello'
>>> a, b, c = 1.12345, 2.34567, 34.5678
>>> digits = 2

>>> '{0}! {1:.{n}f}, {2:.{n}f}, {3:.{n}f}'.format(s, a, b, c, n=digits)
'Hello! 1.12, 2.35, 34.57'

Formatting Numerical Values

The .format() method can interpret a number in different formats, such as:

>>> '{:c}'.format(65)    # Unicode character
'A'

>>> '{:d}'.format(0x0a)  # base 10
'10'

>>> '{:n}'.format(0x0a)  # base 10 using current locale for separators
'10'

Format integers to different bases (hex, oct, binary)

>>> '{0:x}'.format(10) # base 16, lowercase - Hexadecimal
'a'

>>> '{0:X}'.format(10) # base 16, uppercase - Hexadecimal
'A'

>>> '{:o}'.format(10) # base 8 - Octal
'12'

>>> '{:b}'.format(10) # base 2 - Binary
'1010'

>>> '{0:#b}, {0:#o}, {0:#x}'.format(42) # With prefix
'0b101010, 0o52, 0x2a'

>>> '8 bit: {0:08b}; Three bytes: {0:06x}'.format(42) # Add zero padding
'8 bit: 00101010; Three bytes: 00002a'

Use formatting to convert an RGB float tuple to a color hex string:

>>> r, g, b = (1.0, 0.4, 0.0)
>>> '#{:02X}{:02X}{:02X}'.format(int(255 * r), int(255 * g), int(255 * b))
'#FF6600'

Only integers can be converted:

>>> '{:x}'.format(42.0)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: Unknown format code 'x' for object of type 'float'

Custom formatting for a class

Note:

Everything below applies to the str.format method, as well as the format function. In the text below, the two are interchangeable.

For every value which is passed to the format function, Python looks for a __format__ method for that argument. Your own custom class can therefore have their own __format__ method to determine how the format function will display and format your class and it’s attributes.

This is different than the __str__ method, as in the __format__ method you can take into account the formatting language, including alignment, field width etc, and even (if you wish) implement your own format specifiers, and your own formatting language extensions.1

object.__format__(self, format_spec)

For example :

# Example in Python 2 - but can be easily applied to Python 3

class Example(object):
    def __init__(self,a,b,c):
        self.a, self.b, self.c = a,b,c

    def __format__(self, format_spec):
        """ Implement special semantics for the 's' format specifier """
        # Reject anything that isn't an s
        if format_spec[-1] != 's':
            raise ValueError('{} format specifier not understood for this object', format_spec[:-1])

        # Output in this example will be (<a>,<b>,<c>)
        raw = "(" + ",".join([str(self.a), str(self.b), str(self.c)]) + ")"
        # Honor the format language by using the inbuilt string format
        # Since we know the original format_spec ends in an 's' 
        # we can take advantage of the str.format method with a 
        # string argument we constructed above
        return "{r:{f}}".format( r=raw, f=format_spec )

inst = Example(1,2,3)
print "{0:>20s}".format( inst )
# out :              (1,2,3)
# Note how the right align and field width of 20 has been honored.

Note:

If your custom class does not have a custom __format__ method and an instance of the class is passed to the format function, Python2 will always use the return value of the __str__ method or __repr__ method to determine what to print (and if neither exist then the default repr will be used), and you will need to use the s format specifier to format this. With Python3, to pass your custom class to the format function, you will need define __format__ method on your custom class.

Nested formatting

Some formats can take additional parameters, such as the width of the formatted string, or the alignment:

>>> '{:.>10}'.format('foo')
'.......foo'

Those can also be provided as parameters to format by nesting more {} inside the {}:

>>> '{:.>{}}'.format('foo', 10)
'.......foo'
'{:{}{}{}}'.format('foo', '*', '^', 15)
'******foo******'

In the latter example, the format string '{:{}{}{}}' is modified to '{:*^15}' (i.e. “center and pad with * to total length of 15”) before applying it to the actual string 'foo' to be formatted that way.

This can be useful in cases when parameters are not known beforehand, for instances when aligning tabular data:

>>> data = ["a", "bbbbbbb", "ccc"]
>>> m = max(map(len, data))
>>> for d in data:
...     print('{:>{}}'.format(d, m))
      a
bbbbbbb
    ccc

Padding and truncating strings, combined

Say you want to print variables in a 3 character column.

Note: doubling { and } escapes them.

s = """

pad
{{:3}}             :{a:3}:

truncate
{{:.3}}            :{e:.3}:

combined
{{:>3.3}}          :{a:>3.3}:
{{:3.3}}           :{a:3.3}:
{{:3.3}}           :{c:3.3}:
{{:3.3}}           :{e:3.3}:
"""

print (s.format(a="1"*1, c="3"*3, e="5"*5))

Output:

pad
{:3}             :1  :

truncate
{:.3}            :555:

combined
{:>3.3}          :  1:
{:3.3}           :1  :
{:3.3}           :333:
{:3.3}           :555:

Named placeholders

Format strings may contain named placeholders that are interpolated using keyword arguments to format.

Using a dictionary (Python 2.x)

>>> data = {'first': 'Hodor', 'last': 'Hodor!'}
>>> '{first} {last}'.format(**data)
'Hodor Hodor!'

Using a dictionary (Python 3.2+)

>>> '{first} {last}'.format_map(data)
'Hodor Hodor!'

str.format_map allows to use dictionaries without having to unpack them first. Also the class of data (which might be a custom type) is used instead of a newly filled dict.

Without a dictionary:

>>> '{first} {last}'.format(first='Hodor', last='Hodor!')
'Hodor Hodor!'
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