Raymond Hettinger wrote:
From: "Antoine" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
For me the problem is not about ditching the % operator for an
intuitively-named method like format(). It's the format syntax which has
become much more complicated and error-prone without any clear advantage.
It's seems that way to me too. But, it may be one of those things that
you quickly get used to.
%r is about the worst case for the new syntax relative to the old - two
characters become 5. It's worth looking at what those extra characters
buy us though:
{0!r}
{}: Conversion to a bracketed format is what allows us the flexibility
to permit arbitrary format strings (such as datetime formatting), as
well as the
0: Explicit positional argument references allow arguments to be re-used
(not quite sold on this one personally - surely named arguments are even
better for that?)
!: Explicit separators (: or !) allow the option of flexible
object-controlled formatting, while still permitting the basic
formatting of str/repr/ascii if desired.
I'm really starting to wonder if supporting positional arguments to
str.format() *at all* is a mistake. Maybe we should ditch support for
positional arguments and just accept a single dictionary as the sole
parameter to format().
For dictionary formatting, str.format() is a clear winner over
str.__mod__(). For positional formatting I'm not so sure - if someone
decided to convert from %-formatting to str.format, would it be such a
burden to ask them to name their substitution variables in the process?
Silly example:
"%s occurs %s times in this format string" % (2, 2)
"{0} occurs {0} times in this format string".format(2)
"{num} occurs {num} times in this format string".format(dict(num=2))
Cheers,
Nick.
--
Nick Coghlan | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Brisbane, Australia
---------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.boredomandlaziness.org
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