String formatting in Python

Question

I want to do something like String.Format(\"[{0}, {1}, {2}]\", 1, 2, 3) which returns:

[1, 2, 3]

How do I do this in Python?

Answer 1

PEP 498 which landed in python 3.6 added literal string interpolation, which is basically a shortened form of format.

You can now do:

f"[{1}, {2}, {3}]"

Common other uses I find useful are:

pi = 3.141592653589793
today = datetime(year=2018, month=2, day=3)

num_2 = 2     # Drop assigned values in
num_3 = "3"   # Call repr(), or it's shortened form !r
padding = 5   # Control prefix padding
precision = 3 #   and precision for printing


f"""[{1},
     {num_2},
     {num_3!r},
     {pi:{padding}.{precision}},
     {today:%B %d, %Y}]"""

Which will produce:

"[1,\n     2,\n     '3',\n      3.14,\n     February 03, 2018]"