I don't have a good answer for you, but you might be interested to read this: http://python.org/dev/peps/pep-3101/. Which according to a recent blog post by BDFL is going to be how string formatting is done in Python3000.
The character doesn't specify the type to expect, but the formatting function. So, %s calls a string formatter, %r calls repr and %x calls a hex formatter. The there may be multiple formatters that produce different results for given types. An integer can use %d,%e,%f,%s,%x or %r, and they all produce slightly different results. Also, the formatters take parameters. Such as "%+010.5f"%(1.23) which produces "+001.23000". -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
