[Python-Dev] Replacement for print in Python 3.0

[Eli Stevens (WG.c)]

Guido van Rossum wrote:

> It seems to me that, as long as write() and writeln() were built-ins
> taking multiple args, teaching a beginner to use
> 
> 
>>>>writeln("The answer is: ", 4+4)
> 
> 
> is perfectly clear (and might be a gentle introduction to function
> calls as well).

Hello,

I'm Eli Stevens, and this is my first real post to python-dev (bio 
below).  I've got two ideas relating to formatting that I'd thought I'd 
air out.

The first is to add a separator argument to write[ln]:


 >>> def w(*args, **kwargs):
...   nextsep = ""
...   sep = kwargs.get("sep","")
...   output = ""
...   for item in args:
...     output += nextsep
...     nextsep = sep
...     output += str(item)
...   print output
...
 >>> w("foo", "bar")
foobar
 >>> w("foo", "bar", sep=" ")
foo bar
 >>> w("foo", "bar", sep="\n")
foo
bar
 >>> w("foo", "bar", sep="\t")
foo     bar
 >>>

I'd have found this handy just this week at work.  Not a huge deal to 
work around, obviously, but it would have been handy.

The second is something along the lines of:

 >>> f = 3.14159
 >>> str(f)
'3.14159'
 >>> str(f, ".2") # calls f.__str__(".2") which can do whatever it wants
'3.14'
 >>> str(f, "%.2") # the percent is ignored?
'3.14'

Thoughts?

Eli Stevens

Bio:

Geek since I saw my first computer in 5th grade at school.  Programmed 
(poorly) from middle school through high school.  Graduated from Univ. 
of Missouri, Columbia with a bachelors in CS.  C++ fan at the time. 
Worked a startup in the valley for 3 years, heavily in Java.  Mildly 
disliked it (from the start), found python, loved it, got acquired by 
Cisco, but still doing Java.  I cashed out.  Now at Yahoo doing Python 
almost full time.  Happy.   No accepted patches to an open source 
project (yet).  Prefer the MIT license for my code (assuming any of it 
gets to a point where I can release it :).

Whew.  ;)