Pprintpformat

Pprintpformat is a term sometimes used to describe the pretty-printed string representation of a Python object produced by the pprint module. In the Python standard library, the function that creates this string is pformat, located in the pprint module.

pformat returns a multiline, human readable representation of complex data structures such as lists, dictionaries, and nested objects. It is useful for debugging, logging, or displaying data in a readable form. The functionality is provided by the built-in module pprint. There is also a PrettyPrinter class with a pformat-like method.

Parameters for pformat typically include the object to format and optional keyword arguments such as width (line wrapping), indent (indentation level), sort_dicts (whether to sort dictionary keys), and compact (favor shorter representations). The exact available parameters can vary by Python version.

pformat returns the formatted string, while pprint.print or PrettyPrinter().pprint writes output directly to a stream. This distinction makes pformat convenient for embedding the result in logs, error messages, or user interfaces where a string is preferred.

Example usage (in plain text): import pprint; s = pprint.pformat({'a': [1, 2, 3], 'b': {'x': 1, 'y': 2}}); print(s)

See also: pprint module, pformat, PrettyPrinter, pprint.