Print string with new lines aligned in Python

Question

Is there an easy way to print a string that contains a new line \n, aligned to the left after a certain number of characters?

Basically, what I have is something like

A = '[A]: '
B = 'this is\na string\nwith a new line'

print('{:<10} {}'format(A, B))

The problem is that with the new line, the next lines do not start at the 10th column:

[A]:       this is
a string
with a new line

I would like something like

[A]:       this is
           a string
           with a new line

I could maybe split B, but I was wondering if there was an optial way of doing this

What about replacing the '\n' with '\n '? (including 10 spaces). — willeM_ Van Onsem
– willeM_ Van Onsem, Commented Jan 16, 2017 at 10:00

willeM_ Van Onsem · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-16 10:17:57Z

5

An easy way to achieve this is replacing a new line with a new line and 11 (11 because of the 10 in {:<10} but you add an additional space in your format) spaces:

B2 = B.replace('\n','\n           ')
print('{:<10} {}'.format(A, B2))

Or perhaps more elegantly:

B2 = B.replace('\n','\n'+11*' ')
print('{:<10} {}'.format(A, B2))

Running this in python3:

$ python3
Python 3.5.2 (default, Nov 17 2016, 17:05:23) 
[GCC 5.4.0 20160609] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> A = '[A]: '
>>> B = 'this is\na string\nwith a new line'
>>> B2 = B.replace('\n','\n           ')
>>> print('{:<10} {}'.format(A, B2))
[A]:       this is
           a string
           with a new line

edited Jan 16, 2017 at 10:17

answered Jan 16, 2017 at 10:04

willeM_ Van Onsem

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3 Comments

latsha Over a year ago

you should change 10 spaces to 9 because of space after ":" in A

willeM_ Van Onsem Over a year ago

@latsha: euh shouldn't it be 11, I've counted the number of spaces per new line based on the last fragment in the question.

latsha Over a year ago

anyway you can test it out

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