During PyCon 2015 just two weeks ago Ulrich and I started working on something he has had the idea for quite some time ago but somehow we didn’t get around implementing it last year: A page that helps folks understanding what all can be done with Python’s awesome string formatters. And PyFormat.info is the result.
Perhaps we didn’t start working on PyFormat.info last year because our goals were too high and our time too little. So this time we opted for making a classic Minimal Viable Product: An info page; nothing more and nothing less.
What you can find on the site at the time of me writing this is a set of examples for rather common use-cases you might want to use Python’s string formatting for. These examples are presented for both, the old and the new API, where possible. We ourselves always have to look the more complicated features up in the specs so we thought: Why not collect them somewhere?!
The implementation is pretty straight forward. The site itself is nothing more than a static website generated out of a set of PyTest test-cases. This way we can always be sure that our code snippets actually work the way they are printed on the final website. All “content tests” are run against Python 2.7, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4 right now.
If you want to contribute or see more details about the implementation, you can find all that in our Github repo!
We also plan to keep working on and improving it whenever time permits or we find a new example. One of last year’s high goals was to add an interactive component to the site so that you can try the formatters right there. We don’t yet have any concrete plans there but at least a ticket ;-)
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy what we have there right now!
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Alternatively, this website also supports Webmentions. If you write a post on a blog that supports this technique, I should get notified about your link 🙂