4.8 The print Statement

A print statement is denoted by the keyword print followed by zero or more expressions separated by commas. print is a handy, simple way to output values in text form. print outputs each expression x as a string that's just like the result of calling str(x) (covered in Chapter 8). print implicitly outputs a space between expressions, and it also implicitly outputs \n after the last expression, unless the last expression is followed by a trailing comma (,). Here are some examples of print statements:

letter = 'c'
print "give me a", letter, "..."           # prints: give me a c ...
answer = 42
print "the answer is:", answer             # prints: the answer is: 42

The destination of print's output is the file or file-like object that is the value of the stdout attribute of the sys module (covered in Chapter 8). You can control output format more precisely by performing string formatting yourself, with the % operator or other string manipulation techniques, as covered in Chapter 9. You can also use the write or writelines methods of file objects, as covered in Chapter 10. However, print is very simple to use, and simplicity is an important advantage in the common case where all you need are the simple output strategies that print supplies.