Format Specifiers in Python

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Format specifiers allow you to format a printed value based on the flags inserted.

The format flag is placed after the value as {value:flags}

Some flags include:

:.3f       rounds a number to 3 decimal places and f assigns it as floating point
:10       allocates 10 spaces for the result to be displayed in
:010    allocates 10 spaces for the result and fills in the spaces with zeros
:<         left justify
:>         right justify
:^         centre align
:+         use a plus sign to indicate a positive value
:=         place sign to leftmost position
:           insert a space before positive numbers
:,          comma separator (for thousands)

amount1 = 55.25896
amount2 = -45.26
amount3 = 1900.563

#centred, in 10 spaces, 2decimals
print(f"Amount 1: ${amount1:^10.2f}")

#right justified, 10 spaces, 0 in blanks
print(f"Amount 2: ${amount2:>010}")

#left justified, plus sign inserted, 1000's comma
print(f"Amount 3: ${amount3:<+,}")

Outputs:

Amount 1: $  55.26
Amount 2: $0000-45.26
Amount 3: $+1,900.563

Exercise:

Using the values: amount1 = 5556.25896   amount2 = 1445.26  amount3 = 1900.264

Use format specifiers to align the financial amounts with commas to look like:

Amount 1: $  5,556.26
Amount 2: $  1,445.26
Amount 3: $  1,900.26

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