I'm resending this to the list. Please reply to the tutor list rather than directly to me. Also please don't top-post. My answer is below.
On 11 September 2013 10:47, Thabile Rampa <thabilera...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 11:57 AM, Oscar Benjamin <oscar.j.benja...@gmail.com> > wrote: >> >> On 10 September 2013 08:58, Thabile Rampa <thabilera...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > On Aug 27, 2013, at 3:40 AM, isaac Eric wrote >> > >> > According to my understanding, the purpose of the %s is to turn the >> > numbers, >> > which the program has recognized as numbers, into strings, so that they fit >> > in the print command without any syntax errors. >> > >> >> You are correct. '%s' is used to convert numbers (or other non-string >> things) into strings so that they can be used in places where text is >> required. In the particular case of the print command, this is done >> automatically so printing a number directly works just fine: >> > Wow! Thanks so much guy! > > The last two paragraphs especially made it a lot easier to understand! but > why are there so many ways to achieve one goal in Python? The str() function is the default way to convert an object to a string. The print statement uses this implicitly if you try to print something that is not a string which is convenient for simple output. The % formatting codes allow for more advanced usage (see below) but %s is just for the specific case where you want to convert each object using str(). Here's how you can use % formatting to represent the same number in different ways: >>> radius = 12.3456789 >>> radius 12.3456789 >>> print 'radius =', radius radius = 12.3456789 >>> print 'radius = %s' % radius radius = 12.3456789 >>> print 'radius = %.3f' % radius radius = 12.346 >>> print 'radius = %.5f' % radius radius = 12.34568 >>> print 'radius = %.5e' % radius radius = 1.23457e+01 There is also the .format method. This was initially intended to replace % formatting but it was ultimately decided that removing % formatting was not necessary. Consequently there are now two ways of doing advanced string formatting in Python. Oscar _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
