> I would like to see something more like when the file is printed: > > Austin James 704-111-1234 > Austin Janet 704-111-1234 > etc. > > Is this a simple task, or am I jumping into deep water? :)
Hi Don, Not too bad; I think you'll looking for "String Formatting": http://www.python.org/doc/lib/typesseq-strings.html The idea is that we use a template to lay out the rows. This template gives the general shape of what we want. In your example, it looks like every row is ten characters long. A template that can lay out two values as two columns might looks something like this: ###### >>> "%10s%10s" % ("Curious", "George") ' Curious George' ###### Oh, it's justified right. Let me switch that over: ###### >>> "%-10s%-10s" % ("Curious", "George") 'Curious George ' ###### Ok, that's better. *grin* So you should be able to generalize this to build up these nicely formatted lines that can be printed at once. There are some other sophisticated string-formatting tools in Python, many of which live in strings themselves. http://www.python.org/doc/lib/string-methods.html For example, strings even know how to "center" themselves: ###### >>> 'I am a centered sentence.'.center(40) ' I am a centered sentence. ' ###### If you have more questions, please feel free to ask. _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor