[Python-Dev] converting the stdlib to str.format (original) (raw)

Antoine solipsis at pitrou.net
Wed Jun 4 16:08:20 CEST 2008

Antoine Pitrou wrote:

Not to mention that e.g. "%r" % s is much simpler than "{0!r}".format(s) (if I got the format spec right). repr(s) is even simpler :)

Yes, of course, but in the non-trivial case, e.g. "value=%r" % my_value, it's much easier to use %-style formatting than playing with repr() and the other string formatting facilities.

Note that the old code in this case wouldn't display dict or tuple instances correctly. Avoiding that ambiguity is a major advantage of the new approach.

I know. For me the problem is not about ditching the % operator for an intuitively-named method like format(). It's the format syntax which has become much more complicated and error-prone without any clear advantage.

Regards

Antoine.

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