Convert list of strings to space-separated string

Question

I am using underscores to represent the length of a unknown word. How can I print just the underscores without the brackets that represent the list?

Basically, if I have a list of the form ['_', '_', '_', '_'], I want to print the underscores without printing them in list syntax as "_ _ _ _"

Does this answer your question? [How do I convert a list into a string with spaces in Python?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12309976/how-do-i-convert-a-list-into-a-string-with-spaces-in-python) — mkrieger1, May 28 '22 at 17:11

score 38 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 26 '12 at 21:51

38

Does this work for you

>>> my_dashes = ['_', '_', '_', '_']
>>> print ''.join(my_dashes)
____
>>> print ' '.join(my_dashes)
_ _ _ _

answered Oct 26 '12 at 21:51

inspectorG4dget

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 26 '12 at 22:07

1

In [1]: my_dashes = ['_', '_', '_', '_']

In [2]: str(my_dashes).translate(None, '[],\'')
Out[2]: '_ _ _ _'

Add an extra space in the deletechars string to put the dashes together.

answered Oct 26 '12 at 22:07

chimpsarehungry

James Waldby - jwpat7 · Answer 3 · 2012-11-04T06:48:24.807

1

The previously-mentioned join solution (like in following line) is a reasonable solution:

print ''.join(['_', '_', '_', '_'])
____

But also note you can use reduce() to do the job:

print reduce(lambda x,y: x+y, ['_', '_', '_', '_'])
____

After import operator you can say:

print reduce(operator.add, ['_', '_', '_', '_'])
____

edited Nov 04 '12 at 06:48

answered Oct 26 '12 at 22:26

3 Answers3