python2 Min Read

Python 3 - Format String fun

Gorav Singal

May 14, 2019

TL;DR

Use Python 3 f-strings (format strings) by prefixing a string with 'f' and placing variables inside curly braces for clean and readable string interpolation.

Python 3 - Format String fun

This post is dedicated for cases where we intend to append a variable value in a string, whether in logs, string message etc.

Use Format String

Just put a character f before your string, and put all variable in between curly braces.

Example

website_name = 'GyanByte'
year = 2019

print (f'This website: {website_name} has written this post in year: {year}')

>>> This website: GyanByte has written this post in year: 2019

This is fantastic way of using string formatting, and is quite easily readable too.

By Placeholders

Lets look at above example

website_name = 'GyanByte'
year = 2019

print ('This website: %s has written this post in year: %d' %(website_name, year))

# Note: %s for string, and %d for integers

Positional Formatting

Its kind of same as above. But, you use curly braces instead of percentage format.

website_name = 'GyanByte'
year = 2019

print ('This website: {} has written this post in year: {}'.format(website_name, year))

You can use numbers in curly braces if you want to specify which variables comes when:

print ('This website: {0} has written this post in year: {1}. Thanks from {0}'.format(website_name, year))
>>> This website: GyanByte has written this post in year: 2019. Thanks from GyanByte

print ('This website: {1} has written this post in year: {0}'.format(website_name, year))
>>> This website: 2019 has written this post in year: GyanByte

#Note: the position number in curly braces

But, you can not mix them!

print ('This website: {1} has written this post in year: {}'.format(website_name, year))

# error: ValueError: cannot switch from manual field specification to automatic field numbering

Simple Concatenation

You can concatenate strings simply by + operator.

s = 'hi' + ' ' + 'GyanByte'
print(s)

>>> 'hi GyanByte'

This is a simple way, but doesn’t look good.

Share

Related Posts

How to Solve Circular Import Error in Python

How to Solve Circular Import Error in Python

Introduction To give some context, I have two python files. (Both in same folder…

Python 3 - Magical Methods and Tricks with extremely useful methods

Python 3 - Magical Methods and Tricks with extremely useful methods

This post will show some really awesome tricks in python. Get the power of a…

Python 3 - Fun with Python String

Python 3 - Fun with Python String

This post some useful tips of using strings, and some issues while dealing with…

Understanding and Solving pylint errors for Python 3

Understanding and Solving pylint errors for Python 3

Pylint is an excellent tool to have good quality code. This post is not about…

Python SMTP Email Code - How to Send HTML Email from Python Code with Authentication at SMTP Server

Python SMTP Email Code - How to Send HTML Email from Python Code with Authentication at SMTP Server

Introduction This post has the complete code to send email through smtp server…

Python - How to Maintain Quality Build Process Using Pylint and Unittest Coverage With Minimum Threshold Values

Python - How to Maintain Quality Build Process Using Pylint and Unittest Coverage With Minimum Threshold Values

Introduction It is very important to introduce few process so that your code and…

Latest Posts

AI Video Generation in 2025 — Models, Costs, and How to Build a Cost-Effective Pipeline

AI Video Generation in 2025 — Models, Costs, and How to Build a Cost-Effective Pipeline

AI video generation went from “cool demo” to “usable in production” in 2024-202…

AI Models in 2025 — Cost, Capabilities, and Which One to Use

AI Models in 2025 — Cost, Capabilities, and Which One to Use

Choosing the right AI model is one of the most impactful decisions you’ll make…

AI Image Generation in 2025 — Models, Costs, and How to Optimize Spend

AI Image Generation in 2025 — Models, Costs, and How to Optimize Spend

Generating one image with AI costs between $0.002 and $0.12. That might sound…

AI Coding Assistants in 2025 — Every Tool Compared, and Which One to Actually Use

AI Coding Assistants in 2025 — Every Tool Compared, and Which One to Actually Use

Two years ago, AI coding meant one thing: GitHub Copilot autocompleting your…

AI Agents Demystified — It's Just Automation With a Better Brain

AI Agents Demystified — It's Just Automation With a Better Brain

Let’s cut through the noise. If you read Twitter or LinkedIn, you’d think “AI…

Supply Chain Security — Protecting Your Software Pipeline

Supply Chain Security — Protecting Your Software Pipeline

In 2024, a single malicious contributor nearly compromised every Linux system on…