Using multiple arguments for string formatting in Python (e.g., '%s ... %s')

python string syntax
Dean picture Dean · Aug 3, 2010 · Viewed 278.6k times · Source

I have a string that looks like '%s in %s' and I want to know how to seperate the arguments so that they are two different %s. My mind coming from Java came up with this: 

'%s in %s' % unicode(self.author),  unicode(self.publication)

But this doesn't work so how does it look in Python?

Answer

Mark Byers picture Mark Byers · Aug 3, 2010

Mark Cidade's answer is right - you need to supply a tuple.

However from Python 2.6 onwards you can use format instead of %:

'{0} in {1}'.format(unicode(self.author,'utf-8'),  unicode(self.publication,'utf-8'))

Usage of % for formatting strings is no longer encouraged.

This method of string formatting is the new standard in Python 3.0, and should be preferred to the % formatting described in String Formatting Operations in new code.

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