Printing lists in column format in Python

Question

I'm setting up a game of solitaire and I'm trying to figure out some ways that I could print each list of cards in column format. Any ideas on how I could go about doing this with the following lists?

[6♦]
[2♣, 6♠, A♣, 7♣, J♣, XX]
[4♥, 2♥, 4♠, 8♣, 5♦, XX, XX]
[5♠, 3♦, A♠, 10♦, 3♠, XX, XX, XX]
[7♥, 10♣, 10♥, 2♦, J♠, XX, XX, XX, XX]
[8♦, 3♣, 7♦, 9♥, K♠, XX, XX, XX, XX, XX]
[7♠, Q♠, 9♠, A♦, 3♥, XX, XX, XX, XX, XX, XX]

Look at this question and check out itertools.zip_longest. — TigerhawkT3
– TigerhawkT3, Commented Apr 16, 2016 at 3:47
Will this help ? stackoverflow.com/questions/12292970/write-a-list-to-columns — Amit Baswa
– Amit Baswa, Commented Apr 16, 2016 at 3:48

Cyb3rFly3r · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-16 03:54:05Z

3

Taking some guesswork on what you have available in your code and what you want to do, I would say that you should print an element from each list on a row and then move to the next list.

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from itertools import izip_longest

L1 = [u'6♦']
L2 = [u'2♣', u'6♠', u'A♣', u'7♣', u'J♣', u'XX']
L3 = [u'4♥', u'2♥', u'4♠', u'8♣', u'5♦', u'XX', u'XX']

for a,b,c in izip_longest(L1, L2, L3, fillvalue=' '):
    print u'{0}\t{1}\t{2}'.format(a,b,c)

With few changes, you should get what you are looking for. However for more serious terminal game UI, you should consider using python curses.

answered Apr 16, 2016 at 3:54

Cyb3rFly3r

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1 Comment

Cyb3rFly3r Over a year ago

Note that my answer is Python 2.7 code, while Tadhg McDonald-Jensen's answer is Python3. Pick the one that suits your environment better.

Tadhg McDonald-Jensen · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-16 03:57:12Z

2

As mentioned by others, itertools.zip_longest is definitely what you are looking for

from itertools import zip_longest

stacks = [
            ['6♦'],
            ['2♣', '6♠', 'A♣', '7♣', 'J♣', 'XX'],
            ['4♥', '2♥', '4♠', '8♣', '5♦', 'XX', 'XX'],
            ['5♠', '3♦', 'A♠', '10♦', '3♠', 'XX', 'XX', 'XX'],
            ['7♥', '10♣', '10♥', '2♦', 'J♠', 'XX', 'XX', 'XX', 'XX'],
            ['8♦', '3♣', '7♦', '9♥', 'K♠', 'XX', 'XX', 'XX', 'XX', 'XX'],
            ['7♠', 'Q♠', '9♠', 'A♦', '3♥', 'XX', 'XX', 'XX', 'XX', 'XX', 'XX']
         ]

for cards in zip_longest(*stacks,fillvalue=""):
    print(" ".join("%3s"%c for c in cards))

results in this output:

 6♦  2♣  4♥  5♠  7♥  8♦  7♠
     6♠  2♥  3♦ 10♣  3♣  Q♠
     A♣  4♠  A♠ 10♥  7♦  9♠
     7♣  8♣ 10♦  2♦  9♥  A♦
     J♣  5♦  3♠  J♠  K♠  3♥
     XX  XX  XX  XX  XX  XX
         XX  XX  XX  XX  XX
             XX  XX  XX  XX
                 XX  XX  XX
                     XX  XX
                         XX

answered Apr 16, 2016 at 3:57

Tadhg McDonald-Jensen

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4 Comments

Friz_96 Over a year ago

This worked, thank you so much! One last thing: any idea on how to print the 'XX' (flipped cards) before the visible cards?

Tadhg McDonald-Jensen Over a year ago

reversed(list(zip_longest(...)))

Friz_96 Over a year ago

Doing this leaves a large amount of whitespace before any instance of 'XX'. Is there a way to align each column to the first instance of 'XX' rather than the first unflipped card?

Tadhg McDonald-Jensen Over a year ago

zip_longest(*map(reversed,stacks),fillvalue="") to reverse each stack instead of just the order they are printed.

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