[Python-Dev] cpython (3.2): Issue #14123: Explicitly mention that old style % string formatting has caveats (original) (raw)

Georg Brandl g.brandl at gmx.net
Sun Feb 26 22:50:41 CET 2012

On 02/26/2012 10:13 PM, Nick Coghlan wrote:

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 5:23 AM, Eli Bendersky<eliben at gmail.com> wrote:

It would be nice to call it something else than "printf-style formatting". While it is certainly modelled on printf(), knowledge of C or printf is not required to understand %-style formatting, nor even to appreciate it.

+1. The section is already titled "old string formatting operations" so if this name is acceptable it should be reused. If it's not, it should then be consistently changed everywhere. I deliberately chose printf-style as being value neutral (whereas old-style vs new-style carries a heavier recommendation that you should be using the new one). Sure you don't need to know printf to understand it, but it needs some kind of name, and "printf-style" acknowledges its roots. Another value-neutral term is "mod-style", which describes how it is invoked (and I believe we do use that in a few places already).

I've seen "percent-formatting", which is neutral, accurate and doesn't require any previous knowledge. (The new one could be "format-formatting" then, which is a tad awkward. :)

Georg

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