How do I keep Python print from adding spaces ?

Question

In python, if I say

print 'h'

I get the letter h and a newline. If I say

print 'h',

I get the letter h and no newline. If I say

print 'h',
print 'm',

I get the letter h, a space, and the letter m. How can I prevent Python from printing the space?

The print statements are different iterations of the same loop so I can't just use the + operator.

Answer 1

You can use:

sys.stdout.write('h')
sys.stdout.write('m')

Answer 2

Just a comment. In Python 3, you will use

print('h', end='')

to suppress the endline terminator, and

print('a', 'b', 'c', sep='')

to suppress the whitespace separator between items.

Answer 3

print "%s%s%s%s" % ('a','s','d','f')

Answer 4

Greg is right-- you can use sys.stdout.write

Perhaps, though, you should consider refactoring your algorithm to accumulate a list of <whatevers> and then

lst = ['h', 'm']
print  "".join(lst)

Answer 5

print 'h' + 'e',

stupid python :-)

( seriously, it's a great language... but this is just stupid! )

Answer 6

Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Sep 27 2008, 07:03:14)
[GCC 4.3.1] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import sys
>>> print "hello",; print "there"
hello there
>>> print "hello",; sys.stdout.softspace=False; print "there"
hellothere

But really, you should use sys.stdout.write directly.

Answer 7

For completeness, one other way is to clear the softspace value after performing the write.

import sys
print "hello",
sys.stdout.softspace=0
print "world",
print "!"

prints helloworld !

Using stdout.write() is probably more convenient for most cases though.

Answer 8

Using the print statement without a formatting operation first is really only for very basic convenience. If you want to control the format of the output at all, then do as Dustin says: use a format string.

Answer 9

lol

or use a '+', i.e.;

print 'me'+'no'+'likee'+'spacees'+'pls'

menolikeespaceespls

just make sure all are concatenate-able objects

Answer 10

Regain control of your console! Simply:

from __past__ import printf

where __past__.py contains:

import sys
def printf(fmt, *varargs):
    sys.stdout.write(fmt % varargs)

then:

>>> printf("Hello, world!\n")
Hello, world!
>>> printf("%d %d %d\n", 0, 1, 42)
0 1 42
>>> printf('a'); printf('b'); printf('c'); printf('\n')
abc
>>>

Bonus extra: If you don't like print >> f, ..., you can extending this caper to fprintf(f, ...).