[Python-Dev] PEP 292-related: why string substitution is not the same operation as data formatting

[Lalo Martins]

On Fri, Jul 12, 2002 at 10:47:34AM -0400, Guido van Rossum wrote:
> > Guido, can you please, for our enlightenment, tell us what are the
> > reasons you feel %(foo)s was a mistake?
> 
> Because of the trailing 's'.  It's very easy to leave it out by
> mistake, and because the definition of printf formats skips over
> spaces (don't ask me why), the first character of the following word
> is used as the type indicator.

In case that wasn't clear, I agree with that - I asked because I wanted this
in writing for the record.

BTW: IIRC, it skips over spaces because spaces are a valid format modifier
(meaning "pad with spaces").

[]s,
                                               |alo
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