What is precision of a number representation?

[Random832]

On Tue, Jul 12, 2016, at 02:21, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> If not, then what are the alternatives? Using str.format, how would
> you get the same output as this?
> 
> 
> py> "%8.4d" % 25
> '    0025'

"    %04d" % 25

"%8s" % ("%04d" % 25)

The latter (well, generally, "format it how you want and then use %*s to
put it in fixed columns") is something that I've actually *done*,
because it's easier to reason about.