[Tutor] string formatting

[Sivan Orkin]

On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 01:51, Matthew Pirritano <
matthewpirritano at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> All,****
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> ** **
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> I know that I can do this:****
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> "the %s is %s" % ('sky', 'blue')****
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> But I have very large blocks of text and I thought there was another way
> like****
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> X = “sky”****
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> Y = “blue”****
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> "the %(X)s is %(Y)s"****
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> But I’ve tried this and it is not working. I’m just trying to get it to
> work in the interpreter right now.****
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> I’m using python 2.6.5. I need to use this version because it is compatible
> with the software that it is working with (SPSS).****
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> What am I missing?****
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> Thanks****
>
> Matt
>

Hello Matt,

Your problem lies in that Python doesn't know with what to replace the
%(name)s.
If you use plain %s (with no name in parentheses), Python will use the order
of the tuple you give as argument to % to replace the %s in the string.
However, if you want to use argument names (like %(x)s), Python needs to
know what to replace these with.

A hint: % either takes a tuple () as argument, or a dictionary {}.
A dictionary has key-value pairs; what would be the key, and what the value?

Hope that helps!

Sivan
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