Question

I’ve been reading various python coding style guides, some answers on SO, etc. but none of them mentions some maybe not that important questions, but I would like to know if there is a preferred way for doing this:

In case I have a dictionary, which style would be better to use:

dict_name = {'test': 'somevalue',
             'test2': 'other'}

or

dict_name = {
    'longer_key': 'somevalue',
    'longer_key2': 'other'
}

or

dict_name = {
             'test': 'somevalue',
             'test2': 'other'
}

or

dict_name = {
             'test': 'somevalue',
             'test2': 'other'
            }

or something else?

Also for when calling methods:

function_name(longer_arg1, longer_arg2, longer_arg3, 
    longer_arg4)

or

function_name(longer_arg1, longer_arg2, longer_arg3, 
              longer_arg4)

or

function_name(
    longer_arg1, 
    longer_arg2, 
    longer_arg3, 
    longer_arg4
)

or

function_name(
              longer_arg1, 
              longer_arg2, 
              longer_arg3, 
              longer_arg4
)

or something else?

when a longer logging line is used, let’s say:

loggername.info('this is an awfully long line which must be separated'
    'into two lines, am I doing it right? {0}'.format('nope..'))

or even consider this:

loggername.info('this is an {0} {1} line which must be separated'
    'into {2} lines, am I doing it right? {0}'.format(
    'awfully', 'short', 'three', 'nope..')
)

Now this last is somewhat related to the function calling style too, we have many arguments, a long string, how would be the best to separate these kind of lines?

Answer 1

You can’t go wrong with looking at the PEP 8 – The Style Guide for Python Code for guidance on how to write readable Python code. Highly recommended.