python logging string formatting

Question

I am using python's log formatter to format log records and i have a fmt value of

fmt = "[%(filename)s:%(lineno)s] %(message)s"

What i would like is that "[file.py:20]" to be stretched to 10 characters wide (for example). If it was one value that would have been easy but is there any way to stretch this entire structure to a specified length? I want something like:

tmp = "[%(filename)s:%(lineno)s]"
fmt = "%(tmp)10s %(message)s"

I would like to know if this is possible using string formatting or if I can trick python's formatter somehow to get what i want..

Answer 1

As an example, this Formatter ensures a fixed width "[%(filename)s:%(lineno)s]" by either truncating the filename, or right-padding (after the line number) with spaces.

class MyFormatter(logging.Formatter):
    width = 10

    def format(self, record):
        max_filename_width = self.width - 3 - len(str(record.lineno))
        filename = record.filename
        if len(record.filename) > max_filename_width:
            filename = record.filename[:max_filename_width]
        a = "%s:%s" % (filename, record.lineno)
        return "[%s] %s" % (a.ljust(self.width), record.msg)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    logger = logging.getLogger('simple_example')
    logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
    ch = logging.StreamHandler()
    ch.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
    formatter = MyFormatter()
    ch.setFormatter(formatter)
    logger.addHandler(ch)

    logger.debug('No one expects the spammish repetition')

EDIT:

If you want to ensure a minimum width of 10 characters, ditch the filename stuff.

def format(self, record):
    a = "%s:%s" % (record.filename, record.lineno)
    return "[%s] %s" % (a.ljust(self.width), record.msg)