How can I fill out a Python string with spaces?

Question

I want to fill out a string with spaces. I know that the following works for zero\'s:

>>> print  \"\'%06d\'\"%4
\'000004\'

But wha

Answer 1

The new(ish) string format method lets you do some fun stuff with nested keyword arguments. The simplest case:

>>> '{message: <16}'.format(message='Hi')
'Hi             '

If you want to pass in 16 as a variable:

>>> '{message: <{width}}'.format(message='Hi', width=16)
'Hi              '

If you want to pass in variables for the whole kit and kaboodle:

'{message:{fill}{align}{width}}'.format(
   message='Hi',
   fill=' ',
   align='<',
   width=16,
)

Which results in (you guessed it):

'Hi              '

And for all these, you can use python 3.6 f-strings:

message = 'Hi'
fill = ' '
align = '<'
width = 16
f'{message:{fill}{align}{width}}'

And of course the result:

'Hi              '

Answer 2

You can try this:

print "'%-100s'" % 'hi'

Answer 3

You can do this with str.ljust(width[, fillchar]):

Return the string left justified in a string of length width. Padding is done using the specified fillchar (default is a space). The original string is returned if width is less than len(s).

>>> 'hi'.ljust(10)
'hi        '

Answer 4

You could do it using list comprehension, this'd give you an idea about the number of spaces too and would be a one liner.

"hello" + " ".join([" " for x in range(1,10)])
output --> 'hello                 '

Answer 5

A nice trick to use in place of the various print formats:

(1) Pad with spaces to the right:

('hi' + '        ')[:8]

(2) Pad with leading zeros on the left:

('0000' + str(2))[-4:]

Answer 6

Use Python 2.7's mini formatting for strings:

'{0: <8}'.format('123')

This left aligns, and pads to 8 characters with the ' ' character.