Displaying Output with the print Function

The most fundamental
built-in function of Python is the print function, which displays output on the
screen.

Here is an example of a
statement that executes the print function:

print('Hello world')

In
interactive mode:

>>>
print('Hello world')

Hello world

>>> 

When you call the print
function, you type the word print, followed by a set of parentheses. Inside the
parentheses, you type an argument, which is the data that you want
displayed on the screen.

Using
Script:

Program
to display name and address on the computer screen

program name: output.py

print(“Ashraf”)

print(“TTWRDC,Maripeda”)

More
About Data Output

Output can be formatted
in different ways.

1. Suppressing the print
Function’s Ending Newline

The print function
normally displays a line of output.

Example:

print('One')

print('Two')

print('Three')

Each of the statements
shown here displays a string and then prints a newline character.

Output:

One

Two

Three

If the print function
should not start a new line of output when it finishes displaying its output, pass
the special argument end=' ' to the function.

print('One', end=' ')

print('Two', end=' ')

print('Three')

This specifies that the
print function should print a space instead of a newline character at the end
of its output.

Here is the output of
these statements:

One Two Three

To print anything at
the end of its output, not even a space. If that is the case, pass the argument
end='' to the print function, as shown in the following code:

print('One', end='')

print('Two', end='')

print('Three')

This specifies that the
print function should print nothing at the end of its output. Here is the
output of these statements:

OneTwoThree

2. Specifying an Item
Separator

When multiple arguments
are passed to the print function, they are automatically separated by a space
when they are displayed on the screen.

>>>
print('One', 'Two', 'Three')

One Two Three

If space is not to be
printed between the items, pass the argument sep='' to the print function, as
shown here:

>>>
print('One', 'Two', 'Three', sep='')

OneTwoThree

To specify a character
other than the space to separate multiple items in the output use sep=’*’

>>>
print('One', 'Two', 'Three', sep='*')

One*Two*Three

3. Escape Characters

An escape character is
a special character that is preceded with a backslash (\), appearing inside a
string literal. When a string literal that contains escape characters is
printed, the escape characters are treated as special commands that are
embedded in the string.

Some of Python’s
escape characters

Examples:

Ex \n:

print('One\nTwo\nThree')

When this statement
executes, it displays

One

Two

Three

Ex \t:

print('Mon\tTues\tWed')

print('Thur\tFri\tSat')

The output is

Mon     Tues     Wed

Thur     Fri        Sat

Ex \' and \":

The \' and \"
escape characters can be used to display quotation marks.

print("Your
assignment is to read \"Hamlet\" by tomorrow.")

print('I\'m ready to
begin.')

These statements
display the following:

Your assignment is to
read "Hamlet" by tomorrow.

I'm ready to begin.

Ex \\:

The \\ escape character
is used to display a backslash, as shown in the following:

print('The path is
C:\\temp\\data.')

This statement will
display

The path is
C:\temp\data.

4. Displaying Multiple
Items with the + Operator

When the + operator is used
with two strings, it performs string concatenation.

print('This is ' + 'one
string.')

This statement will
print

This is one string.

5. Formatting Numbers

When a floating-point
number is displayed by the print function, it can appear with up to 12
significant digits.

Python provides the
built-in format function, which can be used to round the decimal places. The format
specifier is a string that contains special characters specifying how the
numeric value should be formatted.

format function has two
arguments: a numeric value and a format specifier.

format(12345.6789, '.2f
')

The first argument,
which is the floating-point number 12345.6789, is the number that we want to
format. The second argument, which is the string '.2f', is the format
specifier.

Here is the meaning of
its contents:

• The .2 specifies the
precision. It indicates that we want to round the number to two decimal places.

• The f specifies that
the data type of the number we are formatting is a floating-point number.

output: 12345.68

Formatting in
Scientific Notation

To display
floating-point numbers in scientific notation, use the letter e or the letter E
instead of f.

>>>
print(format(12345.6789, 'e'))

1.234568e+04

>>> print(format(12345.6789,
'.2e'))

1.23e+04

Inserting Comma
Separators

If you want the number
to be formatted with comma separators, you can insert a comma into the format
specifier.

>>>
print(format(12345.6789, ',.2f'))

12,345.68

>>> print(format(123456789.456,
',.2f'))

123,456,789.46

Specifying a Minimum
Field Width

The format specifier
can also include a minimum field width, which is the minimum number of spaces
that should be used to display the value.

>>> print('The
number is', format(12345.6789, '12,.2f'))

The number is 12,345.68

The number 12,345.68
uses only 9 spaces on the screen, but it is displayed in a field that is 12
spaces wide. When this is the case, the number is right justified in the field.
If a value is too large to fit in the specified field width, the field is
automatically enlarged to accommodate it.