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Title: Basic Usage and String Literals (Video) – Real Python

Open Graph Title: Basic Usage and String Literals – Real Python

Description: Welcome! This course is on the print() function in Python. My name is Chris, and I will be your guide. I will be covering how string literals work in Python; how to format those strings and use them inside of print(); the sep, end, and flush…

Open Graph Description: Welcome! This course is on the print() function in Python. My name is Chris, and I will be your guide. I will be covering how string literals work in Python; how to format those strings and use them inside of print(); the sep, end, and flush…

Opengraph URL: https://realpython.com/videos/basic-usage-and-string-literals/

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The Python print() Function: Go Beyond the Basicshttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/
Christopher Trudeauhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/#team
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Course Slides (.pdf)https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/downloads/slides-print/
00:00https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=0.48
Welcome! This course is on the print() function in Python.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=0.48
My name is Chris, and I will be your guide.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=3.39
I will be covering how string literals work in Python;https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=6.36
how to format those strings and use them inside of print();https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=9.69
the sep, end, and flush arguments that have been introduced in the new print()https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=13.26
function in Python 3;https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=17.46
how to print to files and streams besides just to stdout (standard out); how to adjust yourhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=19.62
own data types so they look better when they’re printed;https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=24.27
what changed in print() between Python 2 in Python 3 and the advantages youhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=27.66
can use now that print() is a built-in function;https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=32.159
the alternative to print(), the pretty print command;https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=35.1
how to use ANSI escape sequences to colorize and add bold and underline to yourhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=37.8
text; using control characters to produce simple line animation;https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=42.51
how to mock print() inside of unit tests; how to use print() inside of debugging;https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=47.28
and then finally,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=52.11
I’ll talk a little bit about other places you can go to improve your outputhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=52.89
game. A quick note,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=56.61
before I start: print() is one of the more obvious changes between Python 2 andhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=58.59
Python 3. print used to be a built-in keyword statement and is now a built-inhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=62.4
function. Lesson 6 talks about specific differences, but elsewhere,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=67.41
all of the examples are in Python 3,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=72.09
so the code you see won’t work in a Python 2 environment.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=74.58
01:18https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=78.36
Let’s start with the simplest example—just typing print() into the REPL.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=78.36
01:24https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=84.39
It returns an empty line. That’s because print() expects a string and then appends ahttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=84.39
newline after it. Something a little more useful—printing a greeting…https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=89.52
01:36https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=96.51
and there you go. The output is whatever string was passed to print().https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=96.51
You can also pass multiple arguments to print()—not just strings,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=101.1
but numbers or other kinds of objects. print()https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=105.12
converts them to strings and then prints out the output. Strings are how youhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=108.84
interface with text in your code.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=113.76
01:55https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=115.8
There are three ways of declaring a string inside of Python.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=115.8
The first is to use double quotes ("), the second is single quotes ('),https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=119.31
and the third is triple quotes (""").https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=123.33
02:05https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=125.76
Triple quotes allow you to represent multiline strings. Personally,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=125.76
I use single quotes, but the Python style guide says to be consistent.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=130.05
Triple quotes are also used to create docstrings inside of your code.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=134.85
02:19https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=139.8
Supporting the two kinds of quotes makes it easy to put quotes inside ofhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=139.8
strings. For example, this first sentence has an apostrophe in it.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=143.16
I don’t have to do anything special, because the double quotes on the outsidehttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=147.54
allow me to put the single quote on the inside without making any differences.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=151.44
02:36https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=156.15
Likewise, by putting a string with single quotes on the outside,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=156.15
I can put the double quotes on the inside without having to do anything special.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=159.42
02:44https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=164.4
This can be particularly helpful if you’re showing HTML where there’s a lot ofhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=164.4
quotes inside of the HTML itself.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=168.3
02:52https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=172.89
Let’s look at that inside of the REPL.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=172.89
I’ll start with a double-quote string. Enter it in. Python,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=174.84
interestingly enough, shows that in the REPL as a single quote,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=179.65
but it’s showing you the string I’ve just entered.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=182.98
03:05https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=185.26
Same thing happens if I do it with single quotes. With a multiline quote,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=185.26
the REPL stops when I hit Enter,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=190.12
allows me to keep typing on my multiple bits of input until I close it with thehttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=192.79
triple quotes.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=198.01
03:19https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=199.36
It returns that as a single quote with \n’s inside of ithttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=199.36
where my new lines were. Let’s take a closer look at that.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=204.28
Here’s the code I just entered inside of the REPL.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=209.38
03:32https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=212.56
You’ll notice that it returns with these \n’s.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=212.56
What’s a \n? This represents what’s called a newline.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=215.71
Different operating systems handle this character differently,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=220.48
but Python abstracts that away for you.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=223.54
03:46https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=226.09
The newline character creates a new line in your output,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=226.09
returning the cursor to the beginning. By default, print() automatically adds one ofhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=228.58
these to the end of any string that it prints.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=233.89
03:57https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=237.55
So if I was going to print that stringhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=237.55
that is in the code above, a third newline would show up after the word 'lines',https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=239.44
04:05https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=245.68
returning the cursor to the beginning. \nhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=245.68
isn’t the only special character. These slash ( \ ) characters are calledhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=249.73
escape characters. Newline (\n) does a return to the beginning. Tab (\t) shows a tab.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=253.68
04:19https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=259.48
ASCII bell (\a) actually plays a little “boonk” sound.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=259.48
You can put in octal or hex character values by using the \o or \xhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=263.26
escape.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=269.11
04:30https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=270.55
If you actually have a slash ( \ ) that you need to put in, writing a slash ( \ ) is slash slash ( \\ ).https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=270.55
You can also escape quotes. Slash double quote (\") and slash single quote (\')https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=277.03
allow you to put a quote inside of a stringhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=281.5
if you had to put a single quote inside of a single-quoted string or a doublehttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=284.05
quote inside of a double-quoted string. Lastly,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=287.65
you can also move the cursor back one and cause a carriage return,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=291.04
which moves it to the beginning of the line.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=295.63
04:57https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=297.91
These last two characters are useful for doing animation,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=297.91
which I’ll talk about in a later lesson.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=300.94
05:05https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=305.08
Let’s look at some of these in action.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=305.08
I’m going to start by entering a string with some newlines and some tabs in it.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=307.3
05:13https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=313.45
With each "\n"https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=313.45
I get a new line of text, and with the "\t" I get a tab moving my texthttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=314.56
in by eight spaces.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=319.87
Let’s try some low-grade audio fun. Printing a "\a" makes a “bong” noise.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=322.33
05:29https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=329.5
The sound you get will actually vary depending on your operating system, and inhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=329.5
newer operating systems,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=333.1
you can actually set the sound that gets played. In old operating systems,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=334.09
this was just a little “boop” noise out of your speaker.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=338.53
05:42https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=342.49
Text inside of your computer is represented in an encoding.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=342.49
One of the older encodings that is common through most computers is somethinghttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=346.12
called ASCII. For example,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=349.57
capital letter 'A' in 'ASCII' is the number 65.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=351.79
05:55https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=355.66
You can represent numbers in decimal, octal, and hexadecimal notations,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=355.66
and in print(), you can use that to print out special characters.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=360.56
So octal 275, which is decimal 189, is ½,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=365.87
or at least it is in the font I’m using.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=370.91
06:12https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=372.71
It varies depending on what your encodings are.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=372.71
I can now do the same thing using hex.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=376.01
275 hex is BD and I get the same character.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=380.04
06:27https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=387.53
How about some embedded quotes?https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=387.53
I can escape a \" or a \' so that I can put quotes insidehttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=389.93
of my quotes no matter how I’ve created strings. The backslash ( \ ) character ishttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=395.69
how you formulate an escape sequence. So, what if you only want a backslash?https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=400.31
06:43https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=403.94
Well, backslash backslash ( \\ ) gives you a single backslash ( \ ).https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=403.94
06:49https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=409.37
Easy enough. Now, something a little trickier.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=409.37
How about the carriage return? \r puts the cursor back to the beginning ofhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=412.79
the line.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=417.86
This can cause some weirdnesses. Notice that what gets printed here is only parthttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=419.69
of our string. "Carriage return means go back \r",https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=424.4
then the cursor goes to the beginning of the line and starts overwriting withhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=429.14
"to the start of the line".https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=433.7
07:15https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=435.62
Because "to the start of the line" is shorter than the first segment,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=435.62
you still get the word "back" trailing at the remainder.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=439.58
07:23https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=443.72
This is a little messy, but it’s actually useful when you do animation,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=443.72
which I will talk about in a later lesson.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=447.53
07:31https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=451.82
There are certain kinds of strings where backslashes are common. Windowshttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=451.82
file paths and regular expressions frequently use them.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=455.36
This makes putting backslash backslash ( \\ ) inside of your strings on all thehttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=459.05
backslashes kind of messy. You can get some pretty ugly strings pretty quickly.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=462.83
07:48https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=468.02
Python provides a way to get around this, and that’s the raw string.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=468.02
You prefix an r in front of the string and everything inside of it will ignorehttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=471.71
escape characters.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=476.15
07:57https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=477.86
This allows you to have a lot of cleaner-to-read strings in the case where youhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=477.86
have a lot of backslashes.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=481.1
08:03https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=483.92
One final trick that I like to use is you can multiply strings to tell Python tohttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=483.92
repeat them. 70 * '='? 70 =’s!https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=487.82
I like this because it gives me a nice little divider I can put on the output.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=493.13
08:17https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=497.18
Simple things amuse me. In the next lesson,https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=497.18
I’ll be talking about the different ways to format strings in Python.https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#t=500.51
Aug. 1, 2020https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#comment-4de771e6-7b95-4577-a894-15da27bca507
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Aug. 1, 2020https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#comment-50f238a1-ed07-46d1-b4f2-7056fed06895
Aug. 2, 2020https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#comment-10fa6f63-46fc-47e6-a775-56a3320bba3e
Aug. 3, 2020https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#comment-edb28fd4-d2b2-4c87-b586-b8968b54327e
Aug. 10, 2024https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#comment-826903c2-d3e2-4e70-a050-0877df438829
Dec. 28, 2024https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#comment-c953df76-57b5-44bf-8dc1-f47313fe34e4
Dec. 28, 2024https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#comment-904818af-03dc-4ee8-9f7a-4e55f2582480
Dec. 30, 2024https://realpython.com/courses/python-print/continue/#comment-822dedb9-477e-4507-8371-12067c6aac9f
Become a Memberhttps://realpython.com/account/join/
Overviewhttps://realpython.com/courses/python-print/
https://realpython.com/videos/formatting/
Basic Usage and String Literals 08:25 https://realpython.com/videos/basic-usage-and-string-literals/
String Formatting Styles 03:42 https://realpython.com/videos/formatting/
sep, end, and flush 07:23 https://realpython.com/videos/sep-end-and-flush/
Printing to File Streams 02:43 https://realpython.com/lessons/printing-file-streams/
Custom Data Types 04:56 https://realpython.com/lessons/custom-data-types/
Python 2's print vs Python 3's print() 01:50 https://realpython.com/lessons/python-2s-print-vs-python-3s-print/
Pretty Print 03:27 https://realpython.com/lessons/pretty-print/
ANSI Escape Sequences 01:57 https://realpython.com/lessons/ansi-escape-sequences/
Animation 04:12 https://realpython.com/lessons/animation/
Mocking print() in Unit Tests 05:42 https://realpython.com/lessons/mocking-print-unit-tests/
Debugging 10:40 https://realpython.com/lessons/debugging/
The Python print() Function (Quiz) 12:00 https://realpython.com/lessons/the-python-print-function-quiz/
Related Information 02:05 https://realpython.com/lessons/related-information/
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