string formatting

Question

I am not getting why the colon shifted left in the second time

>>> print '%5s' %':'
    :
>>> print '%5s' %':' '%2s' %':'
 : :

Help me out of this please

Greg Hewgill · Accepted Answer · 2009-04-28 10:08:15Z

9

In Python, juxtaposed strings are concatenated:

>>> t = 'a' 'bcd'
>>> t
'abcd'

So in your second example, it is equivalent to:

>>> print '%5s' % ':%2s' % ':'

which by the precedence rules for Python's % operator, is:

>>> print ('%5s' % ':%2s') % ':'

or

>>> print ' :%2s' % ':'
 : :

answered Apr 28, 2009 at 10:08

Greg Hewgill

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3 Comments

S.Lott Over a year ago

But you left off the punchline: the original statement probably needed a "," to prevent this from happening.

SilentGhost Over a year ago

@S.Lott: and that would add the soft space :)

David Locke Over a year ago

Or, instead of inserting a comma and adding a soft space you can insert a "+" between the first colon and the "%2s" and get the probably intended result of (in words because I don't expect this to come our correct any other way) [four spaces][colon][one space][colon].

Paolo Bergantino · Accepted Answer · 2009-04-28 10:05:45Z

2

What are you trying to do?

>>> print '%5s' % ':'
    :
>>> print '%5s%2s' % (':', ':')
    : :

You could achieve what you want by mixing them both into a single string formatting expression.

answered Apr 28, 2009 at 10:05

Paolo Bergantino

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