[Python-ideas] Rough draft: Proposed format specifier for a thousands separator (discussion moved from python-dev)

[Eric Smith]

Raymond Hettinger wrote:
> Whoa guys!  I think you're treading very far away from and rejecting the 
> whole idea of PEP 3101 which was to be the one ring to bind them all with
> format(obj, fmt) having just two arguments and doing nothing but
> passing them on to obj.__fmt__() which would be responsible for
> parsing a format string.

I completely agree. That's why I said "But this is all orthogonal to the 
str.format() discussion." I meant "orthogonal" in the "unrelated" sense.

I'm completely on board with your PEP 378 as a simple way just to get 
some simple formatting into numbers.

> Also,even  if you wanted a flexible clear separate tool just for number
> formatting, I don't think keyword arguments are the way to go.
> That is a somewhat heavy approach with limited flexibility.
> The research in PEP 378 shows that for languages needing
> fine control and extreme versatility in formatting, some kind
> of picture string is the way to go.  MS Excel is a champ
> at number/date formatting strings:   #,##0 and whatnot.
> The allow negatives to have placeholders, trailing minus signs,
> parentheses, etc.  Columns can be aligned neating, any type
> of padding can be used, any type of separator may be specified.
> The COBOL picture statements also offer flexibility and clarity.
> Mini-languages of some sort beat the heck out of functions
> with a zillion optional arguments.

I think picture based is okay and has its place, but a routine like my 
proposed format_number (which I know is a bad name) is really the heavy 
lifter for all locale-based number formatting. Decimal shouldn't really 
have to completely reimplement locale-based formatting, especially when 
it already exists in the core. I just want to expose it.

Eric.