What is the most pythonic way to build up large strings?

[cstrutton11 at gmail.com]

I am writing a couple of class methods to build up several lines of html.  Some of the lines are conditional and most need variables inserted in them.  Searching the web has given me a few ideas.  Each has its pro's and cons.

The best I have come up with is:


def output_header_js(self, jquery=True, theme=None):
    if self.static_path is None :
        return None

    if jquery is True:
        output = '"<script type="text/javascript" '
        output += 'src="/%s/jquery/jqueryui.js"></script>'% static
        output += '"<script type="text/javascript" '
        output += 'src="/%s/jquery/jquery.js"></script>'% static

    if theme is not None:
        output += '<link href="/%s/jtable/themes/%s/jtable.css" '% static, theme
        output += 'rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />'

    output += '"<script type="text/javascript" '
    output += 'src="/%s/jtable/jquery.jtable.js"></script>' % "static"


I realize that a lot of the above looks repetitive but it is designed to eliminate boilerplate HTML.

I have another method that will build some javascript that looks like this:

$('#StudentTableContainer').jtable({
    title: 'The Student List',
    paging: true, //Enable paging
    pageSize: 10, //Set page size (default: 10)
    sorting: true, //Enable sorting
    defaultSorting: 'Name ASC', //Set default sorting
    actions: {
        listAction: '/Demo/StudentList',
        deleteAction: '/Demo/DeleteStudent',
        updateAction: '/Demo/UpdateStudent',
        createAction: '/Demo/CreateStudent'
    },
    fields: {
        StudentId: {
            key: true,
            create: false,
            edit: false,
            list: false
        },
        Name: {
            title: 'Name',
            width: '23%'
        },
        EmailAddress: {
            title: 'Email address',
            list: false
        },
        ...

Almost every line in this code will require variable insertion or if statements.

Any thoughts on how to improve this?  Thanks in advance.  Chris