[Tutor] Formatter

[Don Arnold]

----- Original Message -----
From: "andy surany" <mongo57a@comcast.net>
To: "Pete Versteegen" <pversteegen@gcnetmail.net>; "Bob Gailer"
<ramrom@earthling.net>; <Tutor@python.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 18, 2003 8:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Tutor] Formatter


> I learned from this example as well.... Thanks!!
>
> I noticed that the format of each field is right justified. How would
> you make it left justified?
>
> Andy

This lets you prepend '-' to the specifier to left justify the field. I
swapped the format string and values arguments so you don't need to specify
the values in a tuple.I also flipped the function of the 'a' and 'x'
specifiers so they match the original specification:

def format(format, *values):
    formatlist = format.split(',')
    sf = ''
    for formatitem in formatlist:
        if formatitem[0] == '-':
            leftjust = 1
            formatitem = formatitem[1:]
        else:
            leftjust = 0

        type = formatitem[0]

        if type in 'fi':
            sf += '%' + (leftjust * '-') + formatitem[1:] + type
        if type == 'a':
            sf += '%' + (leftjust * '-') + formatitem[1:] + 's'
        elif formatitem[-1] == 'x':
            sf += ' '*int(formatitem[:-1])

    return sf % values

a = 5
alf = 'qwer'
i = 3
print '------------------------------------------------'
print format("f10.2,a10,10x,i5",a,alf,i)
print format("-f10.2,-a10,10x,-i5",a,alf,i)
print '12345678901234567890123456789012345   RULER LINE'


[script run (looks bad without a fixed-width font):]
------------------------------------------------
      5.00      qwer              3
5.00      qwer                3
12345678901234567890123456789012345   RULER LINE


HTH,
Don

P.S. Big thanks to Bob! I never would've been able to come up with his
original code on my own.