print() Function and its Use in Python Program

What is print() Function

The print() function in Python is used to output data to the standard output device, which is typically the console or terminal. It is one of the most commonly used functions for debugging and displaying information.

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Let’s explore various examples to understand how the print() function works in Python.

print('Welcome to Dremendo')
print("Welcome to Dremendo")

Welcome to Dremendo
Welcome to Dremendo

Here, we printed the text Welcome to Dremendo on the screen using the print() function. Whatever we place inside the parentheses (brackets) of the print() function will be displayed on the screen.

You can use either single quotes or double quotes to print text using the print() function, as shown in the example above.

print("Python", 3.9, 2024)

Python 3.9 2024

print("Sunday")
print("Monday")

Sunday
Monday

You can see that we used the print() function twice to print Sunday and Monday on separate lines on the screen.

print('Sunday\nMonday')

Sunday
Monday

You can see that we used a single print() function to print Sunday and Monday on separate lines. We included \n (the escape sequence for a new line) right after Sunday, so that after printing Sunday, the line breaks and Monday is printed on the next line.

You can use multiple \n characters to break additional lines, as shown in the example below.

print('\n\nSunday\n\n\nMonday')

Sunday


Monday

In the example above, the line breaks twice before Sunday is printed on the screen. After that, the line breaks twice again, and then Monday is printed.

Use of sep Parameter in print() Function

The sep parameter in Python is commonly used in functions like print(), and it specifies the string that will be inserted between multiple arguments being printed.

The sep parameter is used to format the output on the screen and it is available in Python from version 3.x or later.

print("Sunday", "Monday", "Tuesday", sep=", ")       # Using a comma as a separator
print("18", "06", "2020", sep="-")      # Using a dash as a separator
print(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, sep=" | ")     # Using | separator with numbers
print("Hello", "World", sep="")     # Using no separator

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday
18-06-2020
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
HelloWorld

Use of end Parameter in print() Function

The end parameter in Python is commonly used in functions like print(), and it specifies the string that will be printed at the end of the output. This parameter helps control the formatting of the output, allowing us to print items on the same line or follow a specific format.

print("Hello")
print("World")

Hello
World

print("Sunday", "Monday", end=" ")       # Using a Space

print("\nLoading", end='... ')        # Using a Custom String
print("Please wait.")

print("Hello", end="")      # Using an Empty String
print(" I am Learning", end="")
print(" Python")

Sunday Monday
Loading... Please wait.
Hello I am Learning Python

print("thomas", "wilson", sep="", end="@")
print('dremendo.com')

[email protected]

You can see that we have used sep='' so thomas and wilson will be printed together without any space between them because the sep is blank. At the end of the line we have used end='@' as a result dremendo.com will be printed on the first line after @ character as shown in the output screen.

Print Variable's Value using print() Function

In Python, we can easily print the value of a variable using the print() function. This is often used for debugging or displaying values during program execution. To print the value of a variable, simply pass the variable as an argument to the print() function.

name = "Alice"
age = 30
percentage = 86.32
print(name)
print(age)
print(percentage)

Alice
30
86.32

We can print multiple variables at once by separating them with commas.

name = "Alice"
age = 30
city = "New York"

print(name, age, city)

Alice 30 New York

We can use the sep parameter to customize the output.

a = 10
b = 20
c = a + b

print("Addition of ", a, " and ", b, " = ", c, sep="")

print("a=", a, sep="")
print("b=", b, sep="")
print("c=", c, sep="")

Addition of 10 and 20 = 30
a=10
b=20
c=30

Print Formatted String using % Operator

The % operator in Python allows us to create formatted strings, meaning we can insert variables or expressions into specific placeholders within a string. This is called printf-style formatting, and it works similarly to the printf() function in C.

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Below are the list of symbols used with % operator for formatting outputs on the screen.

name = "Alice"
age = 30

print("My name is %s and I am %d years old" % (name, age))

My name is Alice and I am 30 years old

In the program above, we use format specifiers like %s (for string) and %d (for integer) as placeholders in the string. The values inside the parentheses (name, age) replace the placeholders in the same order.

We can control how many decimal places a floating-point number shows using .nf — where n is the number of digits after the decimal point.

pi = 3.141592653589793

print("Value of Pi = %.2f" % pi)

Value of Pi = 3.14

Here, .2f means to format the float with 2 decimal places.

We can also format text alignment and width using % with width specifiers.

name = "Bob"
print("|%-10s|%s|%10s|" % (name, name.center(20), name))

|Bob       |        Bob         |       Bob|

Here, %-10s means left-align the text and make it 10 characters wide, %s and name.center(20) means center-align the text and make it 20 characters wide, and %10s means right-align the text and make it 10 characters wide.

Print Formatted String using format() Function

The format() function in Python allows us to create formatted strings, which means we can insert variables or expressions into specific placeholders within a string. This method provides a flexible and readable way to format strings.

name = "Alice"
age = 30

print("My name is {} and I am {} years old".format(name, age))

My name is Alice and I am 30 years old

In the program above, we use curly braces {} as empty spots in the string, and then we pass the values we want to insert into the format() function. These values will fill in the empty spots in the order we provide them in the format() function.

We can control the order of the substitutions by using positional arguments in the placeholders:

name = "Alice"
age = 30

print("Name: {1}, Age: {0}".format(age, name))

Name: Alice, Age: 30

In this case, {1} refers to the second argument (name), and {0} refers to the first argument (age).

We can control how many decimal places a floating-point number shows using format() function.

pi = 3.141592653589793

print("Value of Pi = {:.2f}".format(pi))

Value of Pi = 3.14

Here, {:.2f} means to format the float with 2 decimal places.

Using format() function we can format numbers with commas as thousands separators:

large_number = 1000000

print("The number is: {:,}".format(large_number))

The number is: 1,000,000

We can also use format() function to specify padding and alignment of text and numbers.

Left-align (<), center-align (^) and right-align (>).

name = "Bob"
print("|{:<10}|{:^20}|{:>10}|".format(name, name, name))

|Bob       |        Bob         |       Bob|

Here, :<10 means left-align the text and make it 10 characters wide, :^20 means center-align the text and make it 20 characters wide, and :>10 means right-align the text and make it 10 characters wide.

Print Formatted String using f-string

The f-strings (formatted string literals) were introduced in Python 3.6 to make string formatting simpler, more readable, and faster. To use an f-string, prefix the string with f or F and place variables or expressions inside curly braces {}.

name = "Alice"
age = 30

print(f"My name is {name} and I am {age} years old")

My name is Alice and I am 30 years old

pi = 3.141592653589793

print(f"Value of Pi = {pi:.2f}")

Value of Pi = 3.14

large_number = 1000000

print(f"The number is: {large_number:,}")

The number is: 1,000,000

name = "Bob"
print(f"|{name:<10}|{name:^20}|{name:>10}|")

|Bob       |        Bob         |       Bob|

Print the Data Type of Variables using type() Function

In Python, the type() function is used to determine the data type of a variable. We can use it to check the type of any object, such as integers, strings, lists, dictionaries, etc.

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# Defining variables of different types
name = "Alice"         # String
age = 30               # Integer
height = 5.7           # Float
is_student = True      # Boolean
hobbies = ["reading", "sports"]  # List
person = {"name": "Alice", "age": 30}  # Dictionary

# Printing the data types
print("Data type of 'name':", type(name))
print("Data type of 'age':", type(age))
print("Data type of 'height':", type(height))
print("Data type of 'is_student':", type(is_student))
print("Data type of 'hobbies':", type(hobbies))
print("Data type of 'person':", type(person))

Data type of 'name': <class 'str'>
Data type of 'age': <class 'int'>
Data type of 'height': <class 'float'>
Data type of 'is_student': <class 'bool'>
Data type of 'hobbies': <class 'list'>
Data type of 'person': <class 'dict'>

Escape Sequence Character in Python

Escape sequence characters are those that does not represent itself when used inside a character constant or string literal, but is translated into another character or a sequence of characters that may be difficult or impossible to represent directly.

In Python, all escape sequences characters start with a backslash (\) followed by one or more characters that determine the interpretation of the escape sequence.

Common Escape Sequences

Here are some of the most common escape sequences in Python:

print("Hello World\n");  # Newline
print("Hello\tWorld");  # Horizontal tab
print("\\");  # Backslash
print("\"Hello\"");  # Double quote
print("\'Hello\'");  # Single quote
print("Hell\bo World\b");  # Backspace
print("Carriage return \rHello");  # Carriage return

Hello World

Hello	World
\
"Hello"
'Hello'
Helo World
Helloage return