What is the advantage of the new print function in Python 3.x over the Python 2 print statement?

Question

I\'ve heard several times that print being a function (3.x) is better than it being a statement (2.x). But why?

I was a fan of it being a statement mainly because it

Answer 1

You can replace the built-in print by a custom one:

import os
import sys

def print(s):
   sys.stderr.write('Will now print ' + str(s) + '.' + os.linesep)
   sys.stdout.write(str(s) + os.linesep)

print(['A', 'list'])
# Output: 
# stderr: Will now print ['A', 'list'].
# stdout: ['A', 'list']

You can use print inside a lambda or a function call etc.:

example_timeout_function(call=lambda: print('Hello world'), timeout=5)
do_things(print_function=print)