How to print without newline or space?

Andrea Ambu picture Andrea Ambu · Jan 29, 2009 · Viewed 2M times · Source

I'd like to do it in . What I'd like to do in this example in :

In C:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    int i;
    for (i=0; i<10; i++) printf(".");
    return 0;
}

Output:

..........

In Python:

>>> for i in range(10): print('.')
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
>>> print('.', '.', '.', '.', '.', '.', '.', '.', '.', '.')
. . . . . . . . . .

In Python print will add a \n or space, how can I avoid that? Now, it's just an example, don't tell me I can first build a string then print it. I'd like to know how to "append" strings to stdout.

Answer

codelogic picture codelogic · Jan 29, 2009

In Python 3, you can use the sep= and end= parameters of the print function:

To not add a newline to the end of the string:

print('.', end='')

To not add a space between all the function arguments you want to print:

print('a', 'b', 'c', sep='')

You can pass any string to either parameter, and you can use both parameters at the same time.

If you are having trouble with buffering, you can flush the output by adding flush=True keyword argument:

print('.', end='', flush=True)

Python 2.6 and 2.7

From Python 2.6 you can either import the print function from Python 3 using the __future__ module:

from __future__ import print_function

which allows you to use the Python 3 solution above.

However, note that the flush keyword is not available in the version of the print function imported from __future__ in Python 2; it only works in Python 3, more specifically 3.3 and later. In earlier versions you'll still need to flush manually with a call to sys.stdout.flush(). You'll also have to rewrite all other print statements in the file where you do this import.

Or you can use sys.stdout.write()

import sys
sys.stdout.write('.')

You may also need to call

sys.stdout.flush()

to ensure stdout is flushed immediately.