Join a list of strings in python and wrap each string in quotation marks

I've got:

words = ['hello', 'world', 'you', 'look', 'nice']

I want to have:

'"hello", "world", "you", "look", "nice"'

What's the easiest way to do this with Python?

Solution 1:

Update 2021: With f strings in Python3

>>> words = ['hello', 'world', 'you', 'look', 'nice']
>>> ', '.join(f'"{w}"' for w in words)
'"hello", "world", "you", "look", "nice"'

Original Answer (Supports Python 2.6+)

>>> words = ['hello', 'world', 'you', 'look', 'nice']
>>> ', '.join('"{0}"'.format(w) for w in words)
'"hello", "world", "you", "look", "nice"'

Solution 2:

You can try this :

str(words)[1:-1]

Solution 3:

you may also perform a single format call

>>> words = ['hello', 'world', 'you', 'look', 'nice']
>>> '"{0}"'.format('", "'.join(words))
'"hello", "world", "you", "look", "nice"'

Update: Some benchmarking (performed on a 2009 mbp):

>>> timeit.Timer("""words = ['hello', 'world', 'you', 'look', 'nice'] * 100; ', '.join('"{0}"'.format(w) for w in words)""").timeit(1000)
0.32559704780578613

>>> timeit.Timer("""words = ['hello', 'world', 'you', 'look', 'nice'] * 100; '"{}"'.format('", "'.join(words))""").timeit(1000)
0.018904924392700195

So it seems that format is actually quite expensive

Update 2: following @JCode's comment, adding a map to ensure that join will work, Python 2.7.12

>>> timeit.Timer("""words = ['hello', 'world', 'you', 'look', 'nice'] * 100; ', '.join('"{0}"'.format(w) for w in words)""").timeit(1000)
0.08646488189697266

>>> timeit.Timer("""words = ['hello', 'world', 'you', 'look', 'nice'] * 100; '"{}"'.format('", "'.join(map(str, words)))""").timeit(1000)
0.04855608940124512

>>> timeit.Timer("""words = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] * 100; ', '.join('"{0}"'.format(w) for w in words)""").timeit(1000)
0.17348504066467285

>>> timeit.Timer("""words = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] * 100; '"{}"'.format('", "'.join(map(str, words)))""").timeit(1000)
0.06372308731079102

Solution 4:

>>> ', '.join(['"%s"' % w for w in words])

Solution 5:

An updated version of @jamylak answer with F Strings (for python 3.6+), I've used backticks for a string used for a SQL script.

keys = ['foo', 'bar' , 'omg']
', '.join(f'`{k}`' for k in keys)
# result: '`foo`, `bar`, `omg`'