How can I fill out a Python string with spaces?

Question

I want to fill out a string with spaces. I know that the following works for zero\'s:

>>> print  \"\'%06d\'\"%4
\'000004\'

But wha

Answer 1

Correct way of doing this would be to use Python's format syntax as described in the official documentation

For this case it would simply be:
'{:10}'.format('hi')
which outputs:
'hi '

Explanation:

format_spec ::=  [[fill]align][sign][#][0][width][,][.precision][type]
fill        ::=  
align       ::=  "<" | ">" | "=" | "^"
sign        ::=  "+" | "-" | " "
width       ::=  integer
precision   ::=  integer
type        ::=  "b" | "c" | "d" | "e" | "E" | "f" | "F" | "g" | "G" | "n" | "o" | "s" | "x" | "X" | "%"

Pretty much all you need to know is there ^.

Update: as of python 3.6 it's even more convenient with literal string interpolation!

foo = 'foobar'
print(f'{foo:10} is great!')
# foobar     is great!