How do I use Python to easily expand variables to strings?

For python 2 do:

print name,'is a',adjective,noun,'that',verb

For python 3 add parens:

print(name,'is a',adjective,noun,'that',verb)

If you need to save it to a string, you'll have to concatenate with the + operator and you'll have to insert spaces. print inserts a space at all the , unless there is a trailing comma at the end of the parameters, in which case it forgoes the newline.

To save to string var:

result = name+' is a '+adjective+' '+noun+' that '+verb

Since Python 3.6 you can now use this syntax, called f-strings, which is very similar to your suggestion 9 years ago 😊

print(f"{name} is a {adjective} {noun} that {verb}")

f-strings or formatted string literals will use variables from the scope they're used in, or other valid Python expressions.

print(f"1 + 1 = {1 + 1}")  # prints "1 + 1 = 2"

• Here's a link to the documentation of Formatted string literals: https://docs.python.org/3/reference/lexical_analysis.html#f-strings
• And here's a link to the PEP that formalizes the feature: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0498/

"{name} is a {adjective} {noun} that {verb}".format(**locals())

• locals() gives a reference to the current namespace (as a dictionary).
• **locals() unpacks that dictionary into keyword arguments (f(**{'a': 0, 'b': 1}) is f(a=0, b=1)).
• .format() is "the new string formatting", which can by the way do a lot more (e.g. {0.name} for the name attribute of the first positional argument).

Alternatively, string.template (again, with locals if you want to avoid a redundant {'name': name, ...} dict literal).

use string.Template

>>> from string import Template
>>> t = Template("$name is a $adjective $noun that $verb")
>>> t.substitute(name="Lionel", adjective="awesome", noun="dude", verb="snores")
'Lionel is a awesome dude that snores'