3.4 Aligning Strings

Credit: Luther Blissett

3.4.1 Problem

You want to align strings left, right, or center.

3.4.2 Solution

That's what the ljust, rjust, and center methods of string objects are for. Each takes a single argument, the width of the string you want as a result, and returns the starting string with spaces on either or both sides:

>>> print '|', 'hej'.ljust(20), '|', 'hej'.rjust(20), '|', 'hej'.center(20), '|'
| hej             |             hej |       hej       |'.

3.4.3 Discussion

Centering, left-justifying, or right-justifying text comes up surprisingly often�for example, when you want to print a simple report with centered page numbers. Because of this, Python string objects supply this functionality through their methods.

3.4.4 See Also

The Library Reference section on string methods; Java Cookbook Recipe 3.5.