Python CLI String Format into Columns

Question

I'm developing a CLI app for connecting to WPE's API, meanwhile teaching myself some Python. I hit the API and populate a local sqlite database, and then display the records from that database.

    # pull all our installs
    _ins = self._db.get_all_installs( )

    # fire up and index
    _idx = 1

    # fire up a dict object to hold the selectable item
    _selectable = []

    # loop over the results
    for _row in _ins:

        # gather up some info and through them into re-usable variables
        _wpe_id = _row[2]
        _name = _row[3]
        _environ = _row[4]

        # build a "menu" string
        _menu_str = "{}) {} - {}".format( _idx, _name, _environ )

        # add the items to a dict object
        _selectable.append( _wpe_id )

        # increment the index
        _idx += 1

        # display the item
        if _idx % 3 == 0:

            print("here, maybe??")

        # display the item
        print( _menu_str )

What I am struggling with in figuring out is how I can get this to break up the single-line single-row output. Essentially what I would like to do is see this as a 3 column "menu". How can I do this?

Right now, I have over 300 records, which outputs 1 line at a time. Like:

1) Row 1
2) Row 2
3) Row 3

What I would like to do is like:

1) Row 1       2) Row 2       3) Row 3

etc...

How can I do this?

lavalade · Accepted Answer · 2020-09-09 13:02:07Z

1

You could use end optional argument of print function:

print(_menu_str, end='')

to remove the unwanted \n.

In your code, you would have something like this:

if _idx % 3 == 2:
    print(_menu_str, end='')
else:
    print(_menu_str)

edited Sep 9, 2020 at 13:02

answered Sep 9, 2020 at 12:55

lavalade

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3 Comments

Kevin Over a year ago

Didn't know we could do that LOL Pretty close to what I need... oddly though, _idx % 3 ==0 doesnt seem to work right

Kevin Over a year ago

teach me to post a comment before reloading an edittted answer... that definitely does the trick! thanks a bunch

lavalade Over a year ago

I changed the condition to _idx % 3 == 2 to get the \n at the right moment :-).

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