String formatting expressions (Python)

Question

String formatting expressions:

'This is %d %s example!' % (1, 'nice')

String formatting method calls:

'This is {0} {1} example!'.format(1, 'nice')

I personally prefer the method calls (second example) for readability but since it is new, there is some chance that one or the other of these may become deprecated over time. Which do you think is less likely to be deprecated?

Answer 1

Neither; the first one is used in a lot of places and the second one was just introduced. So the question is more which style you prefer. I actually prefer the dict based formatting:

d = { 'count': 1, 'txt': 'nice' }
'This is %(count)d %(txt)s example!' % d

It makes sure that the right parameter goes into the right place, allows to reuse the same parameter in several places, etc.