Printing without newline (print 'a',) prints a space, how to remove?

Question

I have this code:

>>> for i in xrange(20):
...     print 'a',
... 
a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a

I want to output 'a', without ' ' like this:

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Is it possible?

Answer 1

There are a number of ways of achieving your result. If you're just wanting a solution for your case, use string multiplication as @Ant mentions. This is only going to work if each of your print statements prints the same string. Note that it works for multiplication of any length string (e.g. 'foo' * 20 works).

>>> print 'a' * 20
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

If you want to do this in general, build up a string and then print it once. This will consume a bit of memory for the string, but only make a single call to print. Note that string concatenation using += is now linear in the size of the string you're concatenating so this will be fast.

>>> for i in xrange(20):
...     s += 'a'
... 
>>> print s
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Or you can do it more directly using sys.stdout.write(), which print is a wrapper around. This will write only the raw string you give it, without any formatting. Note that no newline is printed even at the end of the 20 as.

>>> import sys
>>> for i in xrange(20):
...     sys.stdout.write('a')
... 
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa>>> 

Python 3 changes the print statement into a print() function, which allows you to set an end parameter. You can use it in >=2.6 by importing from __future__. I'd avoid this in any serious 2.x code though, as it will be a little confusing for those who have never used 3.x. However, it should give you a taste of some of the goodness 3.x brings.

>>> from __future__ import print_function
>>> for i in xrange(20):
...     print('a', end='')
... 
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa>>> 

Answer 2

From PEP 3105: print As a Function in the What’s New in Python 2.6 document:

>>> from __future__ import print_function
>>> print('a', end='')

Obviously that only works with python 3.0 or higher (or 2.6+ with a from __future__ import print_function at the beginning). The print statement was removed and became the print() function by default in Python 3.0.

Answer 3

You can suppress the space by printing an empty string to stdout between the print statements.

>>> import sys
>>> for i in range(20):
...   print 'a',
...   sys.stdout.write('')
... 
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

However, a cleaner solution is to first build the entire string you'd like to print and then output it with a single print statement.

Answer 4

You could print a backspace character ('\b'):

for i in xrange(20):
    print '\ba',

result:

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Answer 5

Python 3.x:

for i in range(20):
    print('a', end='')

Python 2.6 or 2.7:

from __future__ import print_function
for i in xrange(20):
    print('a', end='')

Answer 6

If you want them to show up one at a time, you can do this:

import time
import sys
for i in range(20):
    sys.stdout.write('a')
    sys.stdout.flush()
    time.sleep(0.5)

sys.stdout.flush() is necessary to force the character to be written each time the loop is run.

Answer 7

Just as a side note:

Printing is O(1) but building a string and then printing is O(n), where n is the total number of characters in the string. So yes, while building the string is "cleaner", it's not the most efficient method of doing so.

The way I would do it is as follows:

from sys import stdout
printf = stdout.write

Now you have a "print function" that prints out any string you give it without returning the new line character each time.

printf("Hello,")
printf("World!")

The output will be: Hello, World!

However, if you want to print integers, floats, or other non-string values, you'll have to convert them to a string with the str() function.

printf(str(2) + " " + str(4))

The output will be: 2 4

Answer 8

without what? do you mean

>>> print 'a' * 20
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

?

Answer 9

Either what Ant says, or accumulate into a string, then print once:

s = '';
for i in xrange(20):
    s += 'a'
print s

Answer 10

this is really simple

for python 3+ versions you only have to write the following codes

for i in range(20):
      print('a',end='')

just convert the loop to the following codes, you don't have to worry about other things

Answer 11

WOW!!!

It's pretty long time ago

Now, In python 3.x it will be pretty easy

code:

for i in range(20):
      print('a',end='') # here end variable will clarify what you want in 
                        # end of the code

output:

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 

More about print() function

print(value1,value2,value3,sep='-',end='\n',file=sys.stdout,flush=False)

Here:

value1,value2,value3

you can print multiple values using commas

sep = '-'

3 values will be separated by '-' character

you can use any character instead of that even string like sep='@' or sep='good'

end='\n'

by default print function put '\n' charater at the end of output

but you can use any character or string by changing end variale value

like end='$' or end='.' or end='Hello'

file=sys.stdout

this is a default value, system standard output

using this argument you can create a output file stream like

print("I am a Programmer", file=open("output.txt", "w"))

by this code you will create a file named output.txt where your output I am a Programmer will be stored

flush = False

It's a default value using flush=True you can forcibly flush the stream

Answer 12

as simple as that

def printSleeping():
     sleep = "I'm sleeping"
     v = ""
     for i in sleep:
         v += i
         system('cls')
         print v
         time.sleep(0.02)

Answer 13

in python 2, add (,) after print and it will act as end='' in python 3. But for space in between, you are still off to use future version of the print.

for x in ['a','b','c','d']:
   print(x),