pr 0.6.0

A high-level shorthand print formatter for Python 3 or above

pr

A high-level shorthand print formatter for Python 3 or above

---

Overview

The objective of pr is to streamline the debugging process by allowing developers to implement complex print formatting with minimal effort.

---

Installation

Run pip3 install pr

---

Arguments

var	name	type	default
content	Content	str / list / dict / tuple	""
t	Tabs	int	0
la	Lines After	int	0
lb	Lines Before	int	0
tl	Tab Length	int	4
b	Bullet	bool	False
bc	Bullet Character	str	"•"
c	Color	str	None
cs	Color Span	bool	False
ip	In Place	bool	False
h	Heading	bool	False
hr	Horizontal Rule	bool	False
hrc	Horizontal Rule Character	str	"-"
hrl	Horizontal Rule Length	int	72
dhrl	Dynamic Horizontal Rule Length	bool	False
r	Row	bool	False
rl	Row List	bool	False
p	Padding	int	20
a	Alignment	str	"left"
sb	Status Box	bool	False
st	Status Type	str	"i"
dbg	Debug	bool	True

See also:

• Pretty Printing

---

Examples

Importing the Module

from pr import pr

Printing a String

pr("Hello world")

Hello world

Equivalent to:

print("Hello world")

Printing an Empty String

pr()

Equivalent to:

print("\n")

or

print("")

Using New Lines and Tabs

pr("Hello world", t=1, la=1, lb=1)

or

pr("Hello world", 1, 1, 1)

  Hello world

You may also specify custom tab lengths with the tl argument.

pr("Hello world", t=1)
pr("Hello world", t=1, tl=8)

    Hello world
        Hello world

Where:

• t = number of tabs before the printed string int

• la = number of lines after the printed string int

• lb = number of lines before the printed string int

• tl = number of spaces in a single tab int

Equivalent to:

print(\n\tHello world\n)

Using Bullets

shopping_list = [
    "eggs",
    "bacon",
    "cucumbers",
    "bottled water",
    "fresh straberries",
    "fine cheese",
    "pasta",
]

for item in shopping_list:
    pr(item, b=True)

• eggs
• bacon
• cucumbers
• bottled water
• fresh straberries
• fine cheese
• pasta

for item in shopping_list:
  pr(item, b=True, bc="@")

@ eggs
@ bacon
@ cucumbers
@ bottled water
@ fresh straberries
@ fine cheese
@ pasta

Where:

• b = indicates whether to add a bullet point before the content bool

• bc = desired bullet character str

Equivalent to:

for item in shopping_list:
  print(f"{•} {item}")

for item in shopping_list:
  print(f"{@} {item}")

Using Colors

pr("Hello world", c="r")

Hello word  <-- appears red in terminal

Where:

• c = desired color of text str

Equivalent to:

print(\u001b[31mHello world\u001b[0m)

Accepted colors include:

• Black --> ba, black

• Blue --> bu, blue

• Cyan --> c, cyan

• Green --> g, green

• Magenta --> m, magenta

• Red --> r, red

• White --> w, white

• Yellow --> y, yellow

Using Color Spans

color_span = [
    "Roses are ",
    ("red", "r"),
    " and violets are ",
    ("blue", "bu")
]

pr(color_span, cs=True)

Roses are [red] and violets are [blue]  <--  words in square brackets appear in their respective colors

Where:

• c = indicates whether to treat the iterable as spans of colored text bool

Equivalent to:

print("Roses are \u001b[31mred\u001b[0m and violets are \u001b[34mblue\u001b[0m")

Printing In Place

Printing in place avoids the default Python behavior of printing content on a new line for each call to the print function. Instead, printing in place displays content on the same line, flushing the contents of the previous print statement each time. Such functionality is extremely useful within large loops.

for i in range(101):
  pr(f"Percent complete: {i}%", ip=True)

Percent complete: {1-100}%

Where:

• ip = indicates whether content should be printed in place bool

Equivalent to:

for i in range(101):
    print(f"\r\033[KPercent complete: {i}%", end="", flush=True)

Printing Headings

pr("Hello world", h=True)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello world
------------------------------------------------------------------------

pr("Hello world", h=True, hrl=20)

--------------------
Hello world
--------------------

pr("Hello world", h=True, dhrl=True)
pr("Hello world, goodbye Mars", h=True, dhrl=True)

------------
Hello world
------------

--------------------------
Hello world, goodbye Mars
--------------------------

Where:

• h = indicates whether content should be printed as a heading bool

• hrl = desired length of horizontal rule above and below the heading string int

• dhrl = indicates whether the length of the horizontal rule above and below the heading string should be dynamic, i.e. match the length of the content bool

Equivalent to:

print("-" * 72)
print("Hello world")
print("-" * 72)

print("-" * 20)
print("Hello world")
print("-" * 20)

content = "Hello world"
length = len(content) + 1

print("-" * length)
print(content)
print("-" * length)

Printing Horizontal Rules

pr(hr=True)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

pr(hr=True, hrl=20, hrc="=")

====================

Where:

• hr = indicates whether to print a horizontal rule bool

• hrl = desired length of horizontal rule int

• hrc = desired character used to construct the horizontal rule str

Equivalent to:

print("-" * 72)

print("=" * 20)

Tabulating Data

header = ["Name", "Age", "Location", "Gender"]
rows = [
    ("Joey", 32, "London, UK", "M"),
    ("Penny", 27, "Beijing, China", "F"),
    ("Caroline", 30, "Austin, USA", "F"),
    ("Diego", 24, "Lima, Peru", "M"),
    ("Donny", 29, "La Linea de la Concepcion, Spain", "M")
]

pr(header, r=True, h=True)
for row in rows:
    pr(row, r=True)

or

pr(header, r=True, h=True)
pr(rows, rl=True)

or

header_and_rows = [header] + rows

pr(header_and_rows, rl=True, h=True)

Name                 | Age                  | Location             | Gender
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joey                 | 32                   | London, UK           | M
Penny                | 27                   | Beijing, China       | F
Caroline             | 30                   | Austin, USA          | F
Diego                | 24                   | Lima, Peru           | M
Donny                | 29                   | La Linea de la Con   | M

padding = 25

pr(header, r=True, h=True, hrc="=", p=padding, a="c")
for row in rows:
    pr(row, r=True, p=padding)

or

padding = 25

pr(header, r=True, h=True, hrc="=", p=padding, a="c")
pr(rows, rl=True, p=padding)

           Name           |            Age            |         Location          |          Gender
============================================================================================================
Joey                      | 32                        | London, UK                | M
Penny                     | 27                        | Beijing, China            | F
Caroline                  | 30                        | Austin, USA               | F
Diego                     | 24                        | Lima, Peru                | M
Donny                     | 29                        | La Linea de la Concepci   | M

Where:

• r = indicates whether the content should be treated as a table row bool

• rl = indicates whether the content should be treated as a list of rows bool

• h = indicates whether the content should be treated as a table header, i.e. a row with a horizontal rule underneath bool

• hrc = desired character used to construct the horizontal rule str

• p = desired padding (width) of each column int

• a = desired alignment of each table cell str

Accepted alignment options include:

• Left --> l, left

• Center --> c, center

• Right --> r, right

Remarks:

• Avoid using colors with tabulated data for the time being as Python's string formatter does not play well with with ANSI color codes

Using Status Boxes

pr("Initializing launch sequence...", sb=True, la=1)
pr("Thrusters activated", t=1, sb=True, st="s")
pr("Satcom operational", t=1, sb=True, st="s")
pr("Communications online", t=1, sb=True, st="s")
pr("Major Tom present", t=1, sb=True, st="f")
pr("Aborting launch sequence...", lb=1, sb=True)

[i] Initializing launch sequence...


	[✔] Thrusters activated
	[✔] Satcom operational
	[✔] Communications online
	[✘] Major Tom present


[i] Aborting launch sequence...

Where:

• sb = indicates whether to include a status box before the printed content bool

• st = desired status type to display in the status box str

Accepted status types include:

• Info --> i, info

• Success --> s, success

• Fail --> f, fail

Pretty Printing Data

Pretty printing is enabled by default when a structure such as a dictionary, list, or tuple is passed into pr. This will print the data over multiple lines if necessary rather than attempt to print everything on a single line as the default print statement will do.

d = {
    "personal_info": {"name": "Jose", "age": "23", "location": "Christchurch, New Zealand", "gender": "M"},
    "hobbies": ["running", "swimming", "reading", "photography", "birdwatching", "surfing"]
}

pr(d)

{'hobbies': ['running',
             'swimming',
             'reading',
             'photography',
             'birdwatching',
             'surfing'],
 'personal_info': {'age': '23',
                   'gender': 'M',
                   'location': 'Christchurch, New Zealand',
                   'name': 'Jose'}}

Equivalent to:

from pprint import pprint

pprint(d)

Using Debug

The use case of the debug argument is rather interesting here. In short, if debug is set to False, the pr function will return immediately without printing any output passed into it. So why have this feature at all? Here's an example.

Let's say we have some function that we intend to run in a production environment, where the complexity of the function requires extensive debugging in a local environment. You might introduce a debug argument in your function that will tell it to print debug messages only when debug is set to True, i.e. in the local environment. The function might look something like this:

def my_func(num, dbg=False):
  """ Adds 5 and squares the result """

  # Add 5 to num
  num = num + 5

  # Print debug message
  if dbg is True:
    print("Added 5 to num!")

  # Square the result
  num = num * num

  # Print debug message
  if dbg is True:
    print("Squared num!")

  # Return the squared result
  return num

Clearly, it becomes a tedious process to implement an if statement at every point in your function where would like to print a debug message. Using pr, the same can be accomplished in a single line to save space and improve readability.

def my_func(num, dbg=False):
  """ Adds 5 and squares the result """

  # Add 5 to num
  num = num + 5

  # Print debug message
  pr("Added 5 to num!", dbg=dbg)

  # Square the result
  num = num * num

  # Print debug message
  pr("Squared num!", dbg=dbg)

  # Return the squared result
  return num

---