how to append semicolon to a variable

[Bengt Richter]

On 13 Aug 2005 08:14:32 -0700, "yaffa" <yxxxxlxxxxx at gmail.com> wrote:

>dear folks,
>
>i have the following lines of python code:
>
>        couch = incident.findNextSibling('td')
>	price = couch.findNextSibling('td')
>	sdate = price.findNextSibling('td')
>	city = sdate.findNextSibling('td')
>	strUrl = addr.b.string
>currently what this ends up doing is creating something like this
>
>couch3201/01/2004newyork
>
>now what i want to do is add a semicolon after the couch, price, sdate,
>city so that i get something like this
>
>couch;32;01/01/2004;new york
>
>does anyone know how to do this?
>
>thanks
>
>yaffa
>
>p.s. i tried couch = couch + ';' and then i tried couch = couch + ";"
>and then i tried couch = couch.append ';'
>
Assuming all your findNextSibling calls result in strings, as in

 >>> couch = 'couch'
 >>> price = '32'
 >>> sdate = '01/01/2004'
 >>> city = 'newyork'
 >>>

You can put them in a list
 >>> [couch, price, sdate, city]
 ['couch', '32', '01/01/2004', 'newyork']

And join them with a string inserted between each successive pair of elements

 >>> ';'.join([couch, price, sdate, city])
 'couch;32;01/01/2004;newyork'

If you like a space after each ';', just include it in the joiner string

 >>> '; '.join([couch, price, sdate, city])
 'couch; 32; 01/01/2004; newyork'
 >>>

If all your items weren't string type, you'll have to convert first, e.g.,
 >>> price = 32
 >>> '; '.join([couch, price, sdate, city])
 Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
 TypeError: sequence item 1: expected string, int found
 >>> '; '.join(map(str,[couch, price, sdate, city]))
 'couch; 32; 01/01/2004; newyork'

If you have 2.4 and don't like map, you can use a generator expression:

 >>> '; '.join(str(x) for x in (couch, price, sdate, city))
 'couch; 32; 01/01/2004; newyork'

or if you want the quoted strings

 >>> '; '.join(repr(x) for x in (couch, price, sdate, city))
 "'couch'; 32; '01/01/2004'; 'newyork'"

Note: if you want ';' appended to each item instead of just between items, you
can just add ';' to the whole thing

 >>> '; '.join(str(x) for x in (couch, price, sdate, city)) + ';'
 'couch; 32; 01/01/2004; newyork;'

Which avoids the trailing blank you would get if you appended '; ' to every item
before joining them, as in

 >>> ''.join(('%s; '%x) for x in (couch, price, sdate, city))
 'couch; 32; 01/01/2004; newyork; '

or

 >>> ''.join((str(x) + '; ') for x in (couch, price, sdate, city))
 'couch; 32; 01/01/2004; newyork; '

HTH

Regards,
Bengt Richter