Format output string, right alignment

I am processing a text file containing coordinates x, y, z

     1      128  1298039
123388        0        2
....

every line is delimited into 3 items using

words = line.split()

After processing data I need to write coordinates back in another txt file so as items in each column are aligned right (as well as the input file). Every line is composed of the coordinates

line_new = words[0]  + '  ' + words[1]  + '  ' words[2].

Is there any manipulator like std::setw() etc. in C++ allowing to set the width and alignment?


Try this approach using the newer str.format syntax:

line_new = '{:>12}  {:>12}  {:>12}'.format(word[0], word[1], word[2])

And here's how to do it using the old % syntax (useful for older versions of Python that don't support str.format):

line_new = '%12s  %12s  %12s' % (word[0], word[1], word[2])

You can align it like that:

print('{:>8} {:>8} {:>8}'.format(*words))

where > means "align to right" and 8 is the width for specific value.

And here is a proof:

>>> for line in [[1, 128, 1298039], [123388, 0, 2]]:
    print('{:>8} {:>8} {:>8}'.format(*line))


       1      128  1298039
  123388        0        2

Ps. *line means the line list will be unpacked, so .format(*line) works similarly to .format(line[0], line[1], line[2]) (assuming line is a list with only three elements).