Print multiple arguments in Python

user1985351 picture user1985351 · Mar 8, 2013 · Viewed 961.7k times · Source

This is just a snippet of my code:

print("Total score for %s is %s  ", name, score)

But I want it to print out:

"Total score for (name) is (score)"

where name is a variable in a list and score is an integer. This is Python 3.3 if that helps at all.

Answer

Blender picture Blender · Mar 8, 2013

There are many ways to do this. To fix your current code using %-formatting, you need to pass in a tuple:

  1. Pass it as a tuple:

    print("Total score for %s is %s" % (name, score))
    

A tuple with a single element looks like ('this',).

Here are some other common ways of doing it:

  1. Pass it as a dictionary:

    print("Total score for %(n)s is %(s)s" % {'n': name, 's': score})
    

There's also new-style string formatting, which might be a little easier to read:

  1. Use new-style string formatting:

    print("Total score for {} is {}".format(name, score))
    
  2. Use new-style string formatting with numbers (useful for reordering or printing the same one multiple times):

    print("Total score for {0} is {1}".format(name, score))
    
  3. Use new-style string formatting with explicit names:

    print("Total score for {n} is {s}".format(n=name, s=score))
    
  4. Concatenate strings:

    print("Total score for " + str(name) + " is " + str(score))
    

The clearest two, in my opinion:

  1. Just pass the values as parameters:

    print("Total score for", name, "is", score)
    

    If you don't want spaces to be inserted automatically by print in the above example, change the sep parameter:

    print("Total score for ", name, " is ", score, sep='')
    

    If you're using Python 2, won't be able to use the last two because print isn't a function in Python 2. You can, however, import this behavior from __future__:

    from __future__ import print_function
    
  2. Use the new f-string formatting in Python 3.6:

    print(f'Total score for {name} is {score}')