How to specify string padding with a variable in Python 2.5?

Question

For example:

print('items %05d'%12)

would print 00012.

Can the amount of padding be specified by a variable instead of a literal? I believe python 2.6+ has the .format function but what are the options with python 2.5?

copying the headline into google, first hit, then search for padd, leads to rjust, use as num_digits = 5; print str(12).rjust(num_digits,'0') — Kyss Tao
– Kyss Tao, Commented Mar 26, 2012 at 6:49

steveha · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-26 07:00:16Z

4

You can replace the width number with a * and the Python % substitution will expect an integer value, and use that for the width. Since you will now have at least two values for the % operator (one width and one actual value) you will need to make a tuple to pass them together.

print "items %0*d" % (5, 12)

If you leave out the 0 before the * you will get padding with spaces rather than 0.

Documented here:

http://docs.python.org/release/2.5.2/lib/typesseq-strings.html

Section 3.6.2, rule 4.

edited Mar 26, 2012 at 7:00

answered Mar 26, 2012 at 6:48

steveha

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Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-26 06:45:19Z

1

>>> '##%*s##' % (3, '$')
'##  $##'

answered Mar 26, 2012 at 6:45

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

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MarkHu · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-24 18:01:36Z

0

For more modern versions of Python 3.x try this:

python -c 'print(f"{2**32:,}".rjust(16))'
   4,294,967,296

answered Aug 24, 2022 at 18:01

MarkHu

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