python 3 print statement clarification

Question

In python 2, the python print statement was not a function whereas in python 3 this has been turned to into an function

when I type print( I get some hovertext (or something similar) to

print(value,...,sep=' ', end='\n', file=sys.stdout, flush=False)

I know what value means but a clarification on what what those other variables mean and what are the advantages of python 3's print statement over python 2's would be appreciated (especially sep=' ')

Answer 1

When you provide multiple arguments to print they usually get separated by a space:

>>> print(1, 2, 3)
1 2 3

sep lets you change that to something else:

>>> print(1, 2, 3, sep=', ')
1, 2, 3

Normally, print will add a new line to the end. end lets you change that:

>>> print('Hello.', end='')
Hello.>>>

Normally print will write to standard out. file lets you change that:

>>> with open('test.txt', 'w') as f:
...     print("Hello, world!", file=f)
...

Normally print does not explicitly flush the stream. If you want to avoid an extra sys.stdout.flush() , you can use flush . The effect of this is usually hard to see, but trying this without flush=True should make it visible:

>>> import time
>>> while True:
...     print('.', end='', flush=True)
...     time.sleep(0.5)

Answer 2

Python 2 doesn't have a sep equivalent because print wasn't a function and couldn't be passed arguments. The closest you could do was with join :

 print ' '.join([value, ...])

As for file , you'd have to use this (awkward, in my opinion) syntax:

print >> sys.stdout, ' '.join([value, ...])

I'm not going to copy/paste the documentation here, so read it if you want to know what those arguments are for.