[Tutor] What's the difference between %s and %r?

[Lisi]

On Saturday 23 July 2011 13:48:03 amt wrote:
> Hello! I'm having troubles understanding what is the difference between %s
> and %r(format characters). I did google  and found something on
> StackOverflow but I don't understand the explanation as it's not beginner
> orientated.
>
>
> Also, I have this code from learn python the hard way. Why at line 9 does
> he uses %r? Why did he didn't wrote print "I said: %s." %x ?
>
> 1    x = "There are %d types of people." % 10
> 2    binary = "binary"
> 3    do_not = "don't"
> 4    y = "Those who know %s and those who %s." % (binary, do_not)
> 5
> 6    print x
> 7    print y
> 8
> 9    print "I said: %r." % x
> 10  print "I also said: '%s'." % y
> 11
> 12  hilarious = False
> 13  joke_evaluation = "Isn't that joke so funny?! %r"
> 14
> 15  print joke_evaluation % hilarious
> 16
> 17  w = "This is the left side of..."
> 18  e = "a string with a right side."
> 19
> 20  print w + e
>
>
>
> Thanks in advance!

I have recently worked through that exact question myself.  And it isn't well 
explained.

So - the simplistic answer, gleaned (hopefully not erroneously) from this 
list:  s means a string, d means a number and r can be either or both.  y has 
only words, so is a string, and x has a number (specifically referred to as 
d) and words, so needs r.

Lisi