quotes when using str.format in python

Question

When using str.format to output in python 2.7.6 such as below:

>>> "| {0: ^18} | {1: ^18} |".format(1, 0.001)

This results:

'|         1          |       0.001        |'

I am wondering how to suppress the single quotes on either end of the output string.

Answer 1

The quotes are not part of the return value of the format statement, they are coming from the python interpreter, telling you that it is showing you a string value:

momerath:~ mgregory$ python
Python 2.7.6 (v2.7.6:3a1db0d2747e, Nov 10 2013, 00:42:54) 
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> "| {0: ^18} | {1: ^18} |".format(1, 0.001)
'|         1          |       0.001        |'
>>> print "| {0: ^18} | {1: ^18} |".format(1, 0.001)
|         1          |       0.001        |
>>> a = 1
>>> a
1
>>> a = "foo"
>>> a
'foo'
>>> print a
foo
>>> 

... so if you want to see only the value of a string, simply print it.

I'm not aware of a way to ask the python interpreter not to quote string results when it reports them.

Answer 2

Rising to the challenge of GreenAsJade, and another attempt at directly answering the question by monkey-patching a subclass of str that will echo the str representation on the REPL.

class SillyString(str):
    def __repr__(self):
        return self.__str__()

Instantiate the string:

>>> foo = SillyString('foo')

And have it echoed on the Python shell:

>>> foo
foo

contrasted with the standard Python str:

>>> 'foo'
'foo'

Answer 3

GreenAsJade has a good answer (+1), but I'll see if I can improve on it.

The interpreter is merely echoing the literal in the REPL by printing the __repr__ of the object, a string which if printed should show an unambiguous representation of the object. So to remove the end quotes (and thus the unambiguous object representation), print the object:

>>> ['foo'].__repr__()
"['foo']"

>>> 'foo'.__repr__()
"'foo'"

>>> print 'foo'.__repr__()
'foo'

>>> print 'foo'
foo