Python requests.get function what is the percent symbol doing here?

Question

I am using API documentation with the following snippet:

    r = requests.get("%slogin?username=%s&password=%s"
                     % (BASEURL, username, password))

What is the % symbol doing here? I have never passed this into .get before and I am not sure what it is doing.

Answer 1

From this String formatting: % vs. .format vs. f-string literal

• Python <2.6: "Hello %s" % name
• Python 2.6+: "Hello {}".format(name) (uses str.format)
• Python 3.6+: f"{name}" (uses f-strings)

it is there for formatting the string url

Answer 2

This is one way to do string formatting in Python. It doesn't have anything specifically to do with the get() function.

The first %s takes on the value of the first variable BASEURL. The second %s takes on the value of the second variable username, and so on.

See https://www.programiz.com/python-programming/string-interpolation for more examples.