Python Strings with Specific WIdth

Question

I have been having a bit of trouble looking up a good explanation on how to do this so pointing me to the right direction would be helpful for the following problem.

I need to have a header printed out in a pretty format along with data, unfortunately what happened is shown below.

DeviceName   KB used   KB quota   KB hard limit   grace   
/media/Stuff        58384   5242880   0   none

In order to do this I built a list for the header.

HEADER=['DeviceName', 'KB USED', . . .]

and the same thing with the other entries that I need to print out. In order to print it out the above I did something like this

print "".join('%s'.rjust(5) %i for i in HEADER)

So this obviously does not work because the rjust just pads spaces to the right of string. Is there a way to print a string such that it takes up exactly a certain width and if the string isn't long enough to fit the width, then just pad it with spaces?

P.S. I am limited to python 2.4 which means I can't use format from python 2.7.

Close. You need to run rjust() on the string after the fact. str(i).rjust(5) or as has been pointed out "%5s" % i — Austin Marshall
– Austin Marshall, Commented Nov 2, 2011 at 18:06

jfs · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-02 18:13:37Z

3

You could use '%*s':

HEADER = "DeviceName   |KB used|KB quota|KB hard limit| grace".split('|')
data = ["/media/Stuff", 58384, 5242880, 0, None]
print '|'.join(HEADER)
print '|'.join("%*s" % (width, val) for width, val in zip(map(len,HEADER), data))

Output

DeviceName   |KB used|KB quota|KB hard limit| grace
 /media/Stuff|  58384| 5242880|            0|  None

answered Nov 2, 2011 at 18:13

jfs

417k210 gold badges1k silver badges1.7k bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Lachezar · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-02 18:07:17Z

2

You want it the other way around. How about like this:

>>> "%-5s" % 'sss'
'sss  '

edited Nov 2, 2011 at 18:07

answered Nov 2, 2011 at 17:59

Lachezar

6,7633 gold badges36 silver badges34 bronze badges

Comments

Karl Knechtel · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-02 18:06:08Z

1

 '%s'.rjust(5)

puts the spaces in, assuming that the literal %s is your string. You're going to be substituting that with another string of unknown length, so you can't justify until after the substitution.

However, you don't want to explicitly .rjust() everything yourself, because that functionality is built into the substitution engine. Just put the field width between the % and the s.

You could build up the format string dynamically by measuring the lengths of strings in the header. Use %% to produce a literal % sign when formatting; thus, '%%%ds' % 10 turns into '%10s', which will produce a field width of 10.

Thus, something like:

format_string = ' '.join('%%%ds' % len(h) for h in HEADER)
print ' '.join(HEADER)
for entry in data: print format_string % entry

answered Nov 2, 2011 at 18:06

Karl Knechtel

61.4k14 gold badges131 silver badges193 bronze badges

1 Comment

jfs Over a year ago

you could use '%*s' instead of '%%%ds'.

Petr Viktorin · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-02 18:12:33Z

0

Format the string with a precision:

print ' '.join("%5.5s" % s for s in HEADER)

Or, slice the rjust result:

print ' '.join(s.rjust(5)[:5] for s in HEADER)

edited Nov 2, 2011 at 18:12

answered Nov 2, 2011 at 18:05

Petr Viktorin

67.3k9 gold badges85 silver badges83 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Python Strings with Specific WIdth

4 Answers 4

Output

Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

4 Answers 4

Output

Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related