rootninja

No matter what kind of programming background you come from, when you stumble upon python it’s hard to deny how easy the code just seems to flow from the fingertips.

Even if you’ve only dabbled with python for a minute or two, you’ve probably already figured out that you can print variables using placeholders, like this:

#!/usr/bin/env python
f = 'Inigo'
l = ''Montoya'
print "Hello. My name is %s %s. You killed my father. Prepare to die." % f, l

You might have tried concatenation too, but be careful – bad things happen when you add strings and integers. It’s best to avoid this method completely, but for reference:

#!/usr/bin/env python
fname = 'The'
lname = 'Grinch'
n = 0
print "I'm " + fname + lname + " and there'll be " + n + " more Christmas's!"

However, did you know you can print using %s but with the variable names directly?

#!/usr/bin/env python
first = 'Iron'
last = 'Man'
print "The truth is... I am %(first)s %(last)s." % globals()