How to print a list more nicely?

Question

This is similar to How to print a list in Python “nicely”, but I would like to print the list even more nicely -- without the brackets and apostrophes and commas, and even b

Answer 1

this one prints list in separate columns (order is preserved)

from itertools import zip_longest

def ls(items, n_cols=2, pad=30):
    if len(items) == 0:
        return
    total = len(items)
    chunk_size = total // n_cols
    if chunk_size * n_cols < total:
        chunk_size += 1
    start = range(0, total, chunk_size)
    end = range(chunk_size, total + chunk_size, chunk_size)
    groups = (items[s:e] for s, e in zip(start, end))
    for group in zip_longest(*groups, fillvalue=''):
        template = (' ').join(['%%-%ds' % pad] * len(group))
        print(template % group)

usage:

ls([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7], n_cols=3, pad=10)

output:

1          4          7         
2          5                    
3          6                    

note that there may be missing columns if there is not enough number of items, because columns are filled first.

ls([1, 2, 3, 4, 5], n_cols=4)

output:

1          3          5         
2          4