1.12 String Formatting

String Formatting

Built-in function format can be used to control how strings are displayed.

We saw above the use of built-in function format for controlling how numerical values are displayed. We now look at how the format function can be used to control how strings are displayed. As given above, the format function has the form,

format (value, format_specifier)

where value is the value to be displayed, and format_specifier can contain a combination of formatting options. For example, to produce the string 'Hello' left-justified in a field width of 20 characters would be done as follows,

format('Hello', ' < 20') ➝ 'Hello '

To right-justify the string, the following would be used,

format('Hello', ' > 20') ➝ ' Hello'

Formatted strings are left-justified by default. To center the string the '^' character is used:

format('Hello', '^20'). Another use of the format function is to create strings of blank characters, which is sometimes useful.