formatting strings to have the same width

[John Machin]

On Mar 18, 10:17 am, "spohle" <spo... at gmail.com> wrote:
> sorry the code should read:
>
> foo = ["aaa", "1232"]
> for each in foo:
>     print each.center(10, " ") + " | "

Works OK for me on the console:

Python 2.5 (r25:51908, Sep 19 2006, 09:52:17) [MSC v.1310 32 bit
(Intel)] on win
32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> foo = ['123', '1234', '12345']
>>> for each in foo:
...     print each.center(10, ".") + " | "
...
...123.... |
...1234... |
..12345... |
>>>
>>> for each in foo:
...     print each.center(10, " ") + " | "
...
   123     |
   1234    |
  12345    |
>>> for each in foo:
...     guff = each.center(10, " ") + " | "
...     print guff + str(len(guff))
...
   123     | 13
   1234    | 13
  12345    | 13
>>>

Of course if I go into IDLE and change it to use a proportionally
spaced font (e.g. Arial), and do this:

>>> foo = ['lllll', 'mmmmm']
>>> for each in foo:
	print each.center(10, ' ') + ' | '


  lllll    |
  mmmmm    |
>>>

naturally they don't line up. If something like that isn't the cause
of your problem, you'll need to provide more information about your
environment.

HTH,
John