Python String Formatting: f-strings vs .format() vs %
(slicker.me)
from monica_b1998@lemmy.world to python@programming.dev on 02 May 2026 03:16
https://lemmy.world/post/46322810
from monica_b1998@lemmy.world to python@programming.dev on 02 May 2026 03:16
https://lemmy.world/post/46322810
#python
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Didn’t think I’d learn anything new in this article, but I never knew about f-string’s self-documenting expression syntax. I’ve been doing it myself like a chump!
lol, don’t be too hard on yourself!
I’m not! I’m excited to forget this exists the next time it would be convenient for me to remember it 😋
What annoyed me moving from % to format was the loss of “formatting” floats to integers with “{:d}”, now you get a ValueError
{:.0f}always works though for floats or intsAh nice one
Formatting strings, the running gag of the Python community.
And here I thought f-strings were something that happen when others are forced to read my code.
I worked in python when f-strings were pretty new. Didn’t realise why you would use anything else. It just reads better.
Most importantly you can’t use them with translated strings, so it’s not usable for user facing strings unless you don’t care. This limits fstring usefulness a lot in the projects I work on.
Luckily, there's now t-strings (e.g.
t"{buh}") for that use case (among many others). Here's the PEP: https://peps.python.org/pep-0750/F-strings and .format() are two features I miss from Python whenever I’m writing stuff in another language. The syntax is just so minimal yet powerful
in what language?
Go mainly.
fmthas some functions to do the same sort of formatting but I loved the minimal syntax in Python. JavaScript has a really nice syntax for it as well actuallyreasonable answer