When to use r instead of s in Python

Question

On Learn Python the Hard Way page 21  I see this code example   x    There are  d types of people     10     print  I said   r     x   Why is  r used here instead of  s   When would you use  r  and when would you use  s

User · Accepted Answer

The  s specifier converts the object using str    and  r converts it using repr     For some objects such as integers  they yield the same result  but repr   is special in that  for types where this is possible  it conventionally returns a result that is valid Python syntax  which could be used to unambiguously recreate the object it represents   Here s an example  using a date    gt  gt  gt  import datetime  gt  gt  gt  d   datetime date today    gt  gt  gt  str d   2011-05-14   gt  gt  gt  repr d   datetime date 2011  5  14     Types for which repr   doesn t produce Python syntax include those that point to external resources such as a file  which you can t guarantee to recreate in a different context

User · Answer

This is a version of Ben James s answer  above    gt  gt  gt  import datetime  gt  gt  gt  x   datetime date today    gt  gt  gt  print x 2013-01-11  gt  gt  gt    gt  gt  gt    gt  gt  gt  print  Today s date is  s        x Today s date is 2013-01-11      gt  gt  gt    gt  gt  gt  print  Today s date is  r        x Today s date is datetime date 2013  1  11       gt  gt  gt    When I ran this  it helped me see the usefulness of  r

User · Answer

Use the  r for debugging  since it displays the  raw  data of the variable   but the others are used for displaying to users   That s how  r formatting works  it prints it the way you wrote it  or close to it   It s the  raw  format for debugging  Here  n used to display to users doesn t work   r shows the representation if the raw data of the variable   months     nJan nFeb nMar nApr nMay nJun nJul nAug  print  Here are the months   r    months   Output   Here are the months    nJan nFeb nMar nApr nMay nJun nJul nAug    Check this example from Learn Python the Hard Way

User · Answer

r shows with quotes   It will be like   I said   There are 10 types of people      If you had used  s it would have been   I said  There are 10 types of people

[python] When to use %r instead of %s in Python?

Examples related to python

Examples related to string

Examples related to string-formatting