[Python-ideas] String formatting and namedtuple

[Eric Smith]

Eric Smith wrote:
> I have this mostly implemented in ''.format(), despite my earlier 
> statement that I was done playing with it after the sample that's 
> attached to http://bugs.python.org/issue5237.

The one issue that's causing me problems is what to do with format 
specifiers that themselves need expanding.

 >>> '{0:>{1}}'.format('foo', 5)
'  foo'

Should:
 >>> '{:{}}'.format('foo', 5)

produce the same output, or should it be an error? I think it should 
probably work, but it complicates the implementation sufficiently that I 
probably won't be able to finish it up for a couple of weeks.

I know this is a not-so-useful corner case, but the implementation has 
to do something here. I could easily throw an exception, but I don't see 
how that's more desirable than just making it work.