string formatting: engineering notation

[Darren Dale]

Steve Holden wrote:

> Darren Dale wrote:
>> Does anyone know if it is possible to represent a number as a string with
>> engineering notation (like scientific notation, but with 10 raised to
>> multiples of 3: 120e3, 12e-6, etc.). I know this is possible with the
>> decimal.Decimal class, but repeatedly instantiating Decimals is
>> inefficient for my application (matplotlib plotting library). If it is
>> not currently possible, do you think the python devs would be receptive
>> to including support for engineering notation in future releases?
>> 
> How close is this:
> 
>   >>> "%.3e" % 3.14159
> '3.142e+00'

>>> "%.3e" % 31415.9
'3.142e+04'

What I am looking for is '31.4159e+03'

Darren