Line breaks in list causing a small formatting problem while joining the list

[GrayShark]

On Fri, 21 Jan 2011 07:39:26 -0800, Oltmans wrote:

> Hi Python gurus, hope you're doing well. I've a small problem.
> 
> When I run the following code
> ___________________________________________________
>>>> names = ['oltmans','abramhovic','\n','sal','lee'] print '| ' + ' |
>>>> '.join(names)
> | oltmans | abramhovic |
>  | sal | lee
> ___________________________________________________
> 
> I get the output like above. However, I want it to output like below
> 
> | oltmans | abramhovic |
> | sal | lee
> 
> 
> That is, there shouldn't be a space in the beginning of second line. The
> list can of course contain more than 5 elements. Any ideas? I will
> appreciate any hint. Thanks in advance.

It looks like your trying to print a formatted list. 
With your code you are:
1)	creating a string from a list, with added characters.
2)	printing the new string.

So, look at your string:
names = ['oltmans','abramhovic','\n','sal','lee'] 
newNames = '| ' + ' | '.join( names )
>> newNames 
'| oltmans | abramhovic | \n | sal | lee'

Now you can see your space after the newline (and a missing pipe symbol at 
the end).

When you ask the compiler for newNames, you can see there is a space after 
the newline character. Naturally, the print operator prints out the space.

If this is indeed a formatted list, you should try something else.

Something like:
# first get rid of you formatting element in the list '\n'.
names = [ 'oltmans','abramhovic','sal','lee' ]

# next iterate by twos via the function 'range( start, stop, step )'
range( 0, len( names ), 2 )
[ 0, 2 ]

# now fix up the printing by twos.
>>> for x in range( 0, len( names ), 2 ):
...     print '| %s | %s |' % ( names[ x ], names[ x + 1 ] )
... 
| oltmans | abramhovic |
| sal | lee |

Next, make it pretty.
The next step would be to find the longest string in your list.
>>> def max( theList ):
...     theMax = 0
...     for element in theList:
...             if len( element ) > theMax:
...                     theMax = len( element )
...     return theMax

>>> max( names )
10
Now some centering of strings, from you list.
>>> for x in range( 0, len( names ), 2 ):
...     print '| %s | %s |' % \
		( names[ x ].center(10), \
		names[ x +1 ].center(10) )
... 
|  oltmans   | abramhovic |
|    sal     |    lee     |

Pretty list.

Now make it obscure, like you are a perl programmer; don't
forget to eat up memory as you go along ....

def maxElement( aList ):
	lenList = []
	for x in aList: lenList.append( len( x ) )
	return sorted( lenList, reverse=True )[0]

def formatLine( firstName, secondName, width ):
	return '| %s | %s | % \
		( firstName.center( width ), \
		 secondName.center( width ) )

theWidth = maxElement( names )
for x in range( 0, len( names ), 2 ):
	aLine = formatLines( names[x], names[x+1], theWidth )
	print aLine

Make sure to create at lest two additions files to store
maxElement and formatLine, create an __init__.py and make a package, 
turn in the project and get expelled for being grandiose.


steven.