Python Spacing and Aligning Strings

Python spacing and aligning strings

You should be able to use the format method:

"Location: {0:20} Revision {1}".format(Location, Revision)

You will have to figure out the format length for each line depending on the length of the label. The User line will need a wider format width than the Location or District lines.

Python: String Formatter Align center

Use the new-style format method instead of the old-style % operator, which doesn't have the centering functionality:

print('{:^24s}'.format("MyString"))

Format output string, right alignment

Try this approach using the newer str.format syntax:

line_new = '{:>12}  {:>12}  {:>12}'.format(word[0], word[1], word[2])

And here's how to do it using the old % syntax (useful for older versions of Python that don't support str.format):

line_new = '%12s  %12s  %12s' % (word[0], word[1], word[2])

How to set a variable space with right alignment for a string in Python?

Your problem is operator order - the + for string concattenation is weaker then the method call in

'{:>' + str(space) + 's}'.format(str(bin(i))[2:])

. Thats why you call the .format(...) only on "s}" - not the whole string. And thats where the

ValueError: Single '}' encountered in format string

comes from.

Putting the complete formatstring into parenthesis before applying .format to it fixes that.

You also need 1 more space for binary and can skip some str() that are not needed:

def print_formatted(number):
    space=len(str(bin(number))[2:])+1     # fix here
    for i in range(1,number+1):
        print('{:2d}'.format(i), end='')
        print('{:>3s}'.format(oct(i)[2:]), end='')
        print('{:>3s}'.format(hex(i)[2:]), end='')
        print(('{:>'+str(space)+'s}').format(bin(i)[2:])) # fix here

print_formatted(17)

Output:

 1  1  1     1
 2  2  2    10
 3  3  3    11
 4  4  4   100
 5  5  5   101
 6  6  6   110
 7  7  7   111
 8 10  8  1000
 9 11  9  1001
10 12  a  1010
11 13  b  1011
12 14  c  1100
13 15  d  1101
14 16  e  1110
15 17  f  1111
16 20 10 10000
17 21 11 10001

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From your given output above you might need to prepend this by 2 spaces - not sure if its a formatting error in your output above or part of the restrictions.

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You could also shorten this by using f-strings (and removing superflous str() around bin, oct, hex: they all return a strings already).

Then you need to calculate the the numbers you use to your space out your input values:

def print_formatted(number):
    de,bi,oc,he = len(str(number)), len(bin(number)), len(oct(number)), len(hex(number))

    for i in range(1,number+1):
        print(f'  {i:{de}d}{oct(i)[2:]:>{oc}s}{hex(i)[2:]:>{he}s}{bin(i)[2:]:>{bi}s}')

print_formatted(26)

to accomodate other values then 17, f.e. 128:

    1    1   1         1
    2    2   2        10
    3    3   3        11
...
    8   10   8      1000
...
   16   20  10     10000
...
   32   40  20    100000
...
   64  100  40   1000000
...
  128  200  80  10000000

String alignment when printing in python

Probably, the most elegant way is to use the format method. It allows to easily define the space a string will use:

>>> name = 'Якета'
>>> asterisks = '****************************'
>>> price = 1250.23
>>> print '{0:17}: {1} {2} €'.format(name, asterisks, price)
Якета       : **************************** 1250.23 €

Should you need to programmatically define padding size (for instance, to dynamically accept larger strings instead of hard-coding its size), simply use ljust:

>>> name = 'Якета'
>>> asterisks = '****************************'
>>> price = 1250.23
>>> padding = 17
>>> print '{0}: {1} {2} €'.format(name.ljust(padding), asterisks, price)
Якета       : **************************** 1250.23 €

Considering the case when the maximum string size is unknown previously and the script must adapt to it, we only need to calculate the maximum string size and place it in padding:

>>> names = ['abc', 'defghijklm', 'op', 'q']
>>> asterisks = '****************************'
>>> price = 1250.23
>>> padding = max(map(len, strings))
>>> for name in names:
        print '{0}: {1} {2} €'.format(name.ljust(padding), asterisks, price)
abc       : **************************** 1250.23 €
defghijklm: **************************** 1250.23 €
op        : **************************** 1250.23 €
q         : **************************** 1250.23 €

This thread has a pretty similar issue.

Python Padding strings to align columns in a Tkinter ListBox widget

If what you want to do is to align two columns of strings in a single listbox, I would suggest the following:

1. Use tkFont to measure the lengths of the left strings (for the exact font used) as described here

2. Add spaces between left and right strings so that the right string always start at the same position (in practice this position will vary by a few pixels because even the "space" character is a few pixels wide)

In the end you'll get something like this:

Code (Python 2.x)

import Tkinter as Tk
import tkFont

#Create a listbox
master = Tk.Tk()
listbox = Tk.Listbox(master, width=40, height=20)
listbox.pack()

# Dummy strings to align
stringsLeft = ["short", "medium", "extra-------long", "short", "medium", "short"]
stringsRight = ["one", "two", "three", "four", "five", "six"]

# Get the listbox font
listFont = tkFont.Font(font=listbox.cget("font"))

# Define spacing between left and right strings in terms of single "space" length
spaceLength = listFont.measure(" ")
spacing = 12 * spaceLength

# find longest string in the left strings
leftLengths = [listFont.measure(s) for s in stringsLeft]
longestLength = max(leftLengths)

# combine left and righ strings with the right number of spaces in between
for i in range(len(stringsLeft)):
    neededSpacing = longestLength + spacing - leftLengths[i]
    spacesToAdd = int(round(neededSpacing/spaceLength))
    listbox.insert(Tk.END, stringsLeft[i] + spacesToAdd * " " + stringsRight[i])

Tk.mainloop()

For Python 3.x, replace the import statements with:

import tkinter as Tk
from tkinter import font as tkFont

Create nice column output in python

data = [['a', 'b', 'c'], ['Python Spacing and Aligning Stringsaa', 'b', 'c'], ['a', 'bb', 'c']]

col_width = max(len(word) for row in data for word in row) + 2  # padding
for row in data:
    print "".join(word.ljust(col_width) for word in row)

a            b            c            
Python Spacing and Aligning Stringsaa   b            c            
a            bb   c   

What this does is calculate the longest data entry to determine the column width, then use .ljust() to add the necessary padding when printing out each column.

How can I fill out a Python string with spaces?

You can do this with str.ljust(width[, fillchar]):

Return the string left justified in a string of length width. Padding is done using the specified fillchar (default is a space). The original string is returned if width is less than len(s).

>>> 'hi'.ljust(10)
'hi        '

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