[Python-Dev] cpython (3.2): Issue #14123: Explicitly mention that old style % string formatting has caveats

[Georg Brandl]

On 02/26/2012 10:13 PM, Nick Coghlan wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 5:23 AM, Eli Bendersky<eliben at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>
>>>  It would be nice to call it something else than "printf-style
>>>  formatting". While it is certainly modelled on printf(), knowledge of C
>>>  or printf is not required to understand %-style formatting, nor even to
>>>  appreciate it.
>>
>>
>>  +1. The section is already titled "old string formatting operations" so if
>>  this name is acceptable it should be reused. If it's not, it should then be
>>  consistently changed everywhere.
>
> I deliberately chose printf-style as being value neutral (whereas
> old-style vs new-style carries a heavier recommendation that you
> should be using the new one). Sure you don't need to know printf to
> understand it, but it needs *some* kind of name, and "printf-style"
> acknowledges its roots. Another value-neutral term is "mod-style",
> which describes how it is invoked (and I believe we do use that in a
> few places already).

I've seen "percent-formatting", which is neutral, accurate and doesn't
require any previous knowledge.  (The new one could be "format-formatting"
then, which is a tad awkward. :)

Georg