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Python

Posted by Jassim Alhatem
Jassim Alhatem
20,883 Points

What does this mean?

So I was watching a couple of people and I've seen one of em' do something like this:

print("blah blah blah blah %s" %  **variable**)

what does %s and % mean??

1 Answer

Bhavesh Hirani
Bhavesh Hirani
7,381 Points

They are used for formatting strings. %s acts a placeholder for a string while %d acts as a placeholder for a number. Their associated values are passed in via a tuple using the % operator.

It is very handy when concatenating a number to a string.

e.g

friend1 = "Sam"
friend2 = "John"
friend3 = "Peter"
integer = 3

print("My friends are " + friend1 + ", " + friend2 + " and " + friend3) #My friends are Sam, John and Peter

print("My friends are %s, %s and %s" % (friend1, friend2, friend3)) #My friends are Sam, John and Peter

print("My friends are " + friend1 + ", " + friend2 + " and " + friend3 + ". I have " + integer + "friends.") # Error

print("My friends are %s, %s and %s. I have %d friends" % (friend1, friend2, friend3, integer)) # My friends are Sam, John and Peter. I have 3 friends.
Jassim Alhatem
Jassim Alhatem
20,883 Points

@Bhavesh Hirani, I've been looking for an answer for weeks, lmao.

So it's more of a shortcut kind of. well, thank you, mister!