[Python-ideas] One way to do format and print (was: Desperate need for enhanced print function)
Chris Angelico
rosuav at gmail.com
Mon Sep 7 14:21:47 CEST 2015
On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 10:19 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 07, 2015 at 06:23:13PM +1000, Chris Angelico wrote:
>
>> print("Hello, I am {b}. My favorite number is {a}.".format_map(locals()))
>>
>> This one, though, is a bad idea for several reasons.
>
> Such as what?
>
>
>> Using locals()
>> for formatting is restricted - no globals, no expressions, and no
>> nonlocals that aren't captured in some other way.
>
> That's a feature, not a bug.
>
> locals(), by definition, only includes locals. If you want globals,
> non-locals, built-ins, expressions, or the kitchen sink, you can't get
> them from locals(). Just because the locals() trick doesn't handle every
> possible scenario doesn't make it a bad idea for those cases it does
> handle, any more than it is a bad idea to use 2**5 just because the **
> operator doesn't handle the 3-argument form of pow().
>
> I probably wouldn't use the locals() form if the variable names were
> hard-coded like that, especially for just two of them:
>
> "Hello, I am {b}. My favorite number is {a}.".format(a=a, b=b)
>
> Where the locals() trick comes in handy is when your template string is
> not hard-coded:
>
> if greet:
> template = "Hello, I am {name}, and my favourite %s is {%s}."
> else:
> template = "My favourite %s is {%s}."
> if condition:
> template = template % ("number", "x")
> else:
> template = template % ("colour", "c")
> print(template.format_map(locals())
It's still a poor equivalent for the others. In terms of "why do we
have so many different ways to do the same thing", the response is
"the good things to do with format_map(locals()) are not the things
you can do with f-strings". If what you're looking for can be done
with either, it's almost certainly not better to use locals().
ChrisA
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