Writing to the Screen

The primary way to produce output in Python is the built-in print function.

Basic Use

Pass print a string and it writes that string to the screen, followed by a newline. You can also print the value of any expression. Try it yourself:

Try it live ▶

>>> print("Hello, world!")
Hello, world!
>>> print(2 + 3)
5
>>> total = 42
>>> print(total)
42

Go BackOpen In Tab

Multiple Arguments

print can take multiple arguments, separated by commas. It writes them separated by spaces, and you can change the separator with the sep keyword argument. Experiment below:

Try it live ▶

>>> print("The answer is", 42)
The answer is 42
>>> print(1, 2, 3)
1 2 3
>>> print(1, 2, 3, sep=", ")
1, 2, 3
>>> print("cat", "dog", "bird", sep=" | ")
cat | dog | bird

Go BackOpen In Tab

Controlling the End Character

By default, print adds a newline after the last value. You can change this with the end keyword argument. To suppress the newline entirely, use end="":

print("Enter your name: ", end="")

This is useful when you want user input to appear on the same line as the prompt. (The input() function handles this automatically, as we will see in Combining Input and Output, but print with end="" is needed in other situations.)

To print several items on the same line in separate print calls, give each one end=" ". Run these together:

Try it live ▶

>>> print("one", end=" ")
>>> print("two", end=" ")
>>> print("three")
one two three

Go BackOpen In Tab

Printing Nothing

A print() with no arguments writes a blank line:

print("Before")
print()
print("After")

Output:

Before

After

This is useful for adding vertical space in output.

Printing to a File

print can write to a file instead of the screen using the file keyword argument:

with open("output.txt", "w") as f:
    print("Hello, file!", file=f)

We will cover file I/O in the Files chapter.