How to pad zeroes to a string?

Question

What is a Pythonic way to pad a numeric string with zeroes to the left, i.e. so the numeric string has a specific length?

Answer 1

Strings:

>>> n = '4'
>>> print(n.zfill(3))
004

And for numbers:

>>> n = 4
>>> print(f'{n:03}') # Preferred method, python >= 3.6
004
>>> print('%03d' % n)
004
>>> print(format(n, '03')) # python >= 2.6
004
>>> print('{0:03d}'.format(n))  # python >= 2.6 + python 3
004
>>> print('{foo:03d}'.format(foo=n))  # python >= 2.6 + python 3
004
>>> print('{:03d}'.format(n))  # python >= 2.7 + python3
004

String formatting documentation.

Answer 2

For zip codes saved as integers:

>>> a = 6340
>>> b = 90210
>>> print '%05d' % a
06340
>>> print '%05d' % b
90210

Answer 3

Quick timing comparison:

setup = '''
from random import randint
def test_1():
    num = randint(0,1000000)
    return str(num).zfill(7)
def test_2():
    num = randint(0,1000000)
    return format(num, '07')
def test_3():
    num = randint(0,1000000)
    return '{0:07d}'.format(num)
def test_4():
    num = randint(0,1000000)
    return format(num, '07d')
def test_5():
    num = randint(0,1000000)
    return '{:07d}'.format(num)
def test_6():
    num = randint(0,1000000)
    return '{x:07d}'.format(x=num)
def test_7():
    num = randint(0,1000000)
    return str(num).rjust(7, '0')
'''
import timeit
print timeit.Timer("test_1()", setup=setup).repeat(3, 900000)
print timeit.Timer("test_2()", setup=setup).repeat(3, 900000)
print timeit.Timer("test_3()", setup=setup).repeat(3, 900000)
print timeit.Timer("test_4()", setup=setup).repeat(3, 900000)
print timeit.Timer("test_5()", setup=setup).repeat(3, 900000)
print timeit.Timer("test_6()", setup=setup).repeat(3, 900000)
print timeit.Timer("test_7()", setup=setup).repeat(3, 900000)


> [2.281613943830961, 2.2719342631547077, 2.261691106209631]
> [2.311480238815406, 2.318420542148333, 2.3552384305184493]
> [2.3824197456864304, 2.3457239951596485, 2.3353268829498646]
> [2.312442972404032, 2.318053102249902, 2.3054072168069872]
> [2.3482314132374853, 2.3403386400002475, 2.330108825844775]
> [2.424549090688892, 2.4346475296851438, 2.429691196530058]
> [2.3259756401716487, 2.333549212826732, 2.32049893822186]

I've made different tests of different repetitions. The differences are not huge, but in all tests, the zfill solution was fastest.

Answer 4

For the ones who came here to understand and not just a quick answer. I do these especially for time strings:

hour = 4
minute = 3
"{:0>2}:{:0>2}".format(hour,minute)
# prints 04:03

"{:0>3}:{:0>5}".format(hour,minute)
# prints '004:00003'

"{:0<3}:{:0<5}".format(hour,minute)
# prints '400:30000'

"{:$<3}:{:#<5}".format(hour,minute)
# prints '4$$:3####'

"0" symbols what to replace with the "2" padding characters, the default is an empty space

">" symbols allign all the 2 "0" character to the left of the string

":" symbols the format_spec

Answer 5

For Python 3.6+ using f-strings:

>>> i = 1
>>> f"{i:0>2}"  # Works for both numbers and strings.
'01'
>>> f"{i:02}"  # Works only for numbers.
'01'

For Python 2 to Python 3.5:

>>> "{:0>2}".format("1")  # Works for both numbers and strings.
'01'
>>> "{:02}".format(1)  # Works only for numbers.
'01'

Answer 6

str(n).zfill(width) will work with strings, ints, floats... and is Python 2.x and 3.x compatible:

>>> n = 3
>>> str(n).zfill(5)
'00003'
>>> n = '3'
>>> str(n).zfill(5)
'00003'
>>> n = '3.0'
>>> str(n).zfill(5)
'003.0'