String formatting named parameters?

Question

I know it's a really simple question, but I have no idea how to google it.

how can I do

print '<a href="%s">%s</a>' % (my_url)

So that my_url is used twice? I assume I have to "name" the %s and then use a dict in the params, but I'm not sure of the proper syntax?

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just FYI, I'm aware I can just use my_url twice in the params, but that's not the point :)

Answer 1

print '<a href="%(url)s">%(url)s</a>' % {'url': my_url}

Answer 2

For building HTML pages, you want to use a templating engine, not simple string interpolation.

Answer 3

As well as the dictionary way, it may be useful to know the following format:

print '<a href="%s">%s</a>' % (my_url, my_url)

Here it's a tad redundant, and the dictionary way is certainly less error prone when modifying the code, but it's still possible to use tuples for multiple insertions. The first %s is substituted for the first element in the tuple, the second %s is substituted for the second element in the tuple, and so on for each element in the tuple.

Answer 4

In Python 3, you might choose to use the new string formatting method.

print('<a href="{0}">{0}</a>'.format(my_url))