Why does assignment of split to print formatting not work?

python, split, string, string-formatting

Solution

You must convert `s.split()` into a tuple like so

>>> s = 'here are 4 values'
>>> '%s %s %s %s' % tuple(s.split())
'here are 4 values'

for formatting or use `.format()` instead, unpacking the arguments.

'{0} {1} {2} {3}'.format(*s.split())

Problem

I am puzzled why I can assign/unpack the return of `split()` to the appropriate number of variables, but the same fails for use in a print string using formatting directives. E.g., given: ``` In [202]: s Out[202]: 'here are 4 values' In [203]: s.split() Out[203]: ['here', 'are', '4', 'values'] ``` This works as expected: ``` In [204]: a, b, c, d = s.split() In [205]: print '%s %s %s %s' % (a, b, c, d) here are 4 values ``` But this fails .. ``` In [206]: print '%s %s %s %s' % (s.split()) ``` I am not sure why? Shouldn't the return of `split()` be unpacked and be distributed over the expected arguments for the formatting strings? ``` --------------------------------------------------------------------------- TypeError Traceback (most recent call last) C:\bla\Desktop\<ipython-input-206-600f130ff0b2> in <module>() ----> 1 print '%s %s %s %s' % (s.split()) TypeError: not enough arguments for format string ``` "Note enough arguments" .. I do have the right number of items in the list. Does the list for some reason not unpack in this case, but does with assignments to variables? I came across this in attempting to answer this question writing column entry just one below another in python

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