print, format, and %, evolved.

Q: It's been forty years since C introduced printf() and the basic formatted printing of positional parameters. Isn't it time for an upgrade?

A: Yes! ZOMG, yes!

say goes beyond Python's print statement/function, format function/method, and % string interpolation operator with simpler, higher-level facilities. For example:

from say import say

x, nums, name = 12, list(range(4)), 'Fred'

say("There are {x} things.")
say("Nums has {len(nums)} items: {nums}")
say("Name: {name!r}")

yields:

There are 12 things.
Nums has 4 items: [0, 1, 2, 3]
Name: 'Fred'

At this level, say is basically a simpler, nicer recasting of:

from __future__ import print_function

print("There are {0} things.".format(x))
print("Nums has {0} items: {1}".format(len(nums), nums))
print("Name: {0!r}".format(name))

The more items being printed, and the more complicated the format invocation, the more valuable this simple inline specification becomes.

One final example:

say.title('Discovered')
say("Name: {name:style=blue}", indent='+1')
say("Age:  {age:style=blue}", indent='+1')

Prints a nicely formatted text block, with a proper title and indentation, and just the variable information in blue.

Beyond DRY, Pythonic templates that piggyback the Python's well-proven format() method, syntax, and underlying engine, say's virtues include:

• A single output mechanism that works the same in either Python 2 or Python 3.
• A companion fmt() object for string formatting.
• Higher-order line formatting such as line numbering, indentation, and wrapping built in.
• Convenient methods for common formatting items such as titles, horizontal separators, and vertical whitespace.
• Easy styled output, including ANSI colors and user-defined styles and text transforms.
• Easy output to one or more files, with no additional code.
• Super-duper template/text aggregator objects for easily building, reading, and writing multi-line texts.

Take it for a test drive today! See also the full documentation at Read the Docs.