Display a float with two decimal places in Python

Question

I have a function taking float arguments (generally integers or decimals with one significant digit), and I need to output the values in a string with two decimal places (5

Answer 1

f-string formatting:

This was new in Python 3.6 - the string is placed in quotation marks as usual, prepended with f'... in the same way you would r'... for a raw string. Then you place whatever you want to put within your string, variables, numbers, inside braces f'some string text with a {variable} or {number} within that text' - and Python evaluates as with previous string formatting methods, except that this method is much more readable.

>>> foobar = 3.141592
>>> print(f'My number is {foobar:.2f} - look at the nice rounding!')

My number is 3.14 - look at the nice rounding!

You can see in this example we format with decimal places in similar fashion to previous string formatting methods.

NB foobar can be an number, variable, or even an expression eg f'{3*my_func(3.14):02f}'.

Going forward, with new code I prefer f-strings over common %s or str.format() methods as f-strings can be far more readable, and are often much faster.