Pythonistas, This is the resolution of a question I asked over the weekend.
The method I was thinking of was in a program I wrote on my work computer but couldn't remember. Now I'm at work and I see. It is not including the tuple at the end of the string nor using a dictionary. There is another way using locals(). I was trying to remember this method: You some variables say: X = "sky" Y = "blue" Print "the %(x)s is %(y)s" % locals() the sky is blue That works! And in cases where I'm replacing over 20 strings it's much easier than having to include a tuple at the end. Especially when there's only two or three variables I'm replacing repeatedly, in which case a dictionary seems like overkill. Thanks Matt Matthew Pirritano, Ph.D. Research Analyst IV Medical Services Initiative (MSI) Orange County Health Care Agency (714) 568-5648 -----Original Message----- From: tutor-bounces+mpirritano=ochca....@python.org [mailto:tutor-bounces+mpirritano=ochca....@python.org] On Behalf Of Steven D'Aprano Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2011 6:58 PM To: tutor@python.org Subject: Re: [Tutor] string formatting Matthew Pirritano wrote: > But I have very large blocks of text and I thought there was another way > like > > X = "sky" > Y = "blue" > "the %(X)s is %(Y)s" Unless you use the string formatting operator %, strings containing "%" are just strings. Large or small, the way you do string formatting is with the % operator. Python will never do string formatting without an explicit command to do so: text % value # Single non-tuple argument text % (value, value, ...) # Multiple arguments They don't have to be string literals, they can be variables: text = "Hello, I'd like to have an %s" value = "argument" print text % value You can also use named arguments by using a dictionary: text = "Hello, I'd like to have an %(X)s" values = {"X": "argument"} print text % values More details in the Fine Manual: http://docs.python.org/library/stdtypes.html#string-formatting Alternatives include the new advanced formatting method: text.format() http://docs.python.org/library/string.html#formatstrings and "$" substitutions with the string module: import string string.Template http://docs.python.org/library/string.html#template-strings -- Steven _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
