Hi,
I'm trying to use Python's new style string formatting with a dict and string
together.
For example, I have the following dict and string variable:
my_dict = { 'cat': 'ernie', 'dog': 'spot' }
foo = 'lorem ipsum'
If I want to just use the dict, it all works fine:
'{cat} and {dog}'.format(**my_dict)
'ernie and spot'
(I'm also curious how the above ** works in this case).
However, if I try to combine them:
'{cat} and {dog}, {}'.format(**my_dict, foo)
...
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
I also tried with:
'{0['cat']} {1} {0['dog']}'.format(my_dict, foo)
...
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
However, I found that if I take out the single quotes around the keys it then
works:
'{0[cat]} {1} {0[dog]}'.format(my_dict, foo)
"ernie lorem ipsum spot"
I'm curious - why does this work? Why don't the dictionary keys need quotes
around them, like when you normally access a dict's elements?
Also, is this the best practice to pass both a dict and string to .format()? Or
is there another way that avoids needing to use positional indices? ({0}, {1}
etc.)
Cheers,
Victor
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