String formatting with the format string syntax

[Peter Otten]

Andre Alexander Bell wrote:

> On 09/15/2010 10:00 AM, Peter Otten wrote:
>> def extract_names(t, recurse=1):
>>      for _, name, fmt, _ in t._formatter_parser():
>>          if name is not None:
>>              yield name
>>          if recurse and fmt is not None:
>>              for name in extract_names(fmt, recurse-1):
>>                  yield name
> 
> Thanks Peter, I very much like this generator solution. It will work for
> all situations I can currently think of.
> 
> However, one thing remains. It is based on the _format_parser method.
> And as I wrote in my original post this one - since it starts with _ -
> suggests to me to better not be used. So if using this method is
> completely ok, why does it start with _, why is it almost undocumented?
> Or did I miss something, some docs somewhere?

Sorry, I really should have read your original post carefully/completely. It 
would have spared me from finding _formatter_parser() independently...

I personally would not be too concerned about the leading underscore, but 
you can use

string.Formatter().parse(template)

instead.

Peter