Multi line string with arguments. How to declare?

Question

Let's say I have an extremely long string with arguments that I want to create. I know you can create a multiline string with

cmd = """line 1       line 2       line 3""" 

But now lets say I want to pass 1, 2, and 3 as arguments.

This works

cmd = """line %d       line %d       line %d""" % (1, 2, 3) 

But if I have a super long string with 30+ arguments, how can I possibly pass those arguments in multiple lines? Passing them in a single line defeats the purpose of even trying to create a multiline string.

Thanks to anyone in advance for their help and insight.

Answer 1

You could use the str.format() function, that allows named arguments, so:

'''line {0} line {1} line {2}'''.format(1,2,3) 

You could of course extend this using Python's *args syntax to allow you to pass in a tuple or list:

args = (1,2,3) '''line {0} line {1} line {2}'''.format(*args) 

If you can intelligently name your arguments, the most robust solution (though the most typing-intensive one) would be to use Python's **kwargs syntax to pass in a dictionary:

args = {'arg1':1, 'arg2':2, 'arg3':3} '''line {arg1} line {arg2} line {arg3}'''.format(**args) 

For more information on the str.format() mini-language, go here.