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[Python-Dev] Replacement for print in Python 3.0

Michael Chermside mcherm at mcherm.com
Thu Sep 8 14:14:02 CEST 2005 
Guido writes:
> Is it worth doing this and completely dropping the %-based formats in
> Py3k? (Just asking -- it might be if we can get people to get over the
> shock of $ becoming first class ;-).

In my opinion, YES -- it's worth seriously considering it. A single,
well-designed solution for string interpolation (with syntactic support
if needed to make it very easy to use) is FAR better than having one
good solution and another legacy solution. Just the awkwardness of the
trailing s in "%(foo)s" is enough to motivate a search for something
better.

But this presuposes that there IS a single well-designed solution. PEP 292
templates are an excellent start, but they are not that solution. The
largest problem is the lack of a means for formatting numbers. People
should think hard about good solutions.

He continues:
> I proposed ${varname%fmt} earlier but it prevents you to extend the
> varname syntax to arbitrary expressions, which I think is an extension
> that will get lots of requests.

I certainly agree that we should keep open the syntactic possibility
to allow arbitrary Python expressions between "${" and "}" in an
interpolation string even though it may not be supported today.

I favor idea (Barry's?) of using "${<value>:<format>:<more-format>}"
where <value> is an identifier (but someday might allow expressions),
and <format> and <more-format> behave like the % interpolation modifiers
today. I would have suggested it myself, but somehow I failed to realize
that slice literals are allowed only within subscripts and thus do not
conflict with this use.

-- Michael Chermside
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