Question

I want to create a text file which contains a table, created from lists. But, I don’t want to have to do something like this:

import string
print >> textfile, string.rjust(listname[0],3), string.rjust(listname[1],3),

The following code demonstrates the idea of what I would like to do, but doesn’t work:

import string
listname = ['test1','test2','test3']
i=0
for i in range(0,3):
   print >> textfile, string.rjust(listname[i],5)

I would like the output to look exactly like this:

test1   test2   test3

That’s what I’m trying to do and how it makes sense in my head, but obviously that won’t (and isn’t) working.

I’ve used the join() function to print the lists nicely, but I can’t get the spacing right for the table.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

If I’m understanding the problem correctly, you could just do this…

>>> def print_table():
...     headers = ['One', 'Two', 'Three']
...     table = [['test1', 2, 3.0],
...             ['test4', 5, 6.0],
...             ['test7', 8, 9.0],
...             ]
...     print ''.join(column.rjust(10) for column in headers)
...     for row in table:
...         print ''.join(str(column).rjust(10) for column in row)
... 
>>> 
>>> print_table()
       One       Two     Three
     test1         2       3.0
     test4         5       6.0
     test7         8       9.0
>>> 

No need for the string module or integers to index into the table.

I’ve printed to standard out for clarity, but you can write to a file just as easily.