Python String Padding

Question

I am trying to output a string from a tuple with different widths between each element.

Here is the code I am using at the moment:

b = tuple3[3] + ', ' + tuple3[4] + '          ' + tuple3[0] + ' ' 
+ tuple3[2] + '          ' + '£' + tuple3[1]

print(b)

Say for example I input these lines of text:

12345 1312 Teso Billy Jones
12344 30000 Test John M Smith

The output will be this:

Smith, John M          12344 Test          £30000
Jones, Billy          12345 Teso          £1312

How can I keep the padding consistent with larger spacing between the 3 parts?

Also, when I input these strings straight from a text file this is the output I recieve:

  Smith
, John M          12344 Test          £30000
Jones, Billy          12345 Teso          £1312

How can I resolve this?

Thanks alot.

Where is "Smith" in your input? All I see is "Senfkewjnrmith" — mgilson
– mgilson, Commented Dec 9, 2013 at 1:08
Thanks that sorted the spacing, but for some reason 'Smith' is still not in the same line as ', John M 12344 Test £30000' — user2975192
– user2975192, Commented Dec 9, 2013 at 1:13

Hugh Bothwell · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-09 01:18:57Z

5

String formatting to the rescue!

lines_of_text = [
    (12345, 1312,  'Teso', 'Billy',  'Jones'),
    (12344, 30000, 'Test', 'John M', 'Smith')
]

for mytuple in lines_of_text:
    name = '{}, {}'.format(mytuple[4], mytuple[3])
    value = '£' + str(mytuple[1])
    print('{name:<20} {id:>8} {test:<12} {value:>8}'.format(
        name=name, id=mytuple[0], test=mytuple[2], value=value)
    )

results in

Jones, Billy            12345 Teso           £1312
Smith, John M           12344 Test          £30000

answered Dec 9, 2013 at 1:18

Hugh Bothwell

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3 Comments

user2975192 Over a year ago

Thank you. I have narrowed down the problem with the new line randomly starting and it's because I input the strings from a file with tuple(a.split(' ')) 'a' being the line inputed from the text file. However, with this method the tuple comes out in this format: ('12344', '30000', 'Test', 'Smith\n', 'John M'). How can I fix this?

Mast Over a year ago

Would you happen to know how the formatting can be done using variable padding? Like this: '{name:<var_padding} instead of {name:<20}, so the amount can be set with an argument?

Hugh Bothwell Over a year ago

@Mast: you can build the format-string first, ie fmt = "{{name:{width}}}".format(width=20) and then pass it to print, print(fmt.format(name="Billy")).

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