<!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8" /> <title>textwrap — Text wrapping and filling — Python 3.7.4 documentation</title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/pydoctheme.css" type="text/css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/pygments.css" type="text/css" /> <script type="text/javascript" id="documentation_options" data-url_root="../" src="../_static/documentation_options.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/jquery.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/underscore.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/doctools.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/language_data.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/sidebar.js"></script> <link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" title="Search within Python 3.7.4 documentation" href="../_static/opensearch.xml"/> <link rel="author" title="About these documents" href="../about.html" /> <link rel="index" title="Index" href="../genindex.html" /> <link rel="search" title="Search" href="../search.html" /> <link rel="copyright" title="Copyright" href="../copyright.html" /> <link rel="next" title="unicodedata — Unicode Database" href="unicodedata.html" /> <link rel="prev" title="difflib — Helpers for computing deltas" href="difflib.html" /> <link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/png" href="../_static/py.png" /> <link rel="canonical" href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/textwrap.html" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/copybutton.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/switchers.js"></script> <style> @media only screen { table.full-width-table { width: 100%; } } </style> </head><body> <div class="related" role="navigation" aria-label="related navigation"> <h3>Navigation</h3> <ul> <li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px"> <a href="../genindex.html" title="General Index" accesskey="I">index</a></li> <li class="right" > <a href="../py-modindex.html" title="Python Module Index" >modules</a> |</li> <li class="right" > <a href="unicodedata.html" title="unicodedata — Unicode Database" accesskey="N">next</a> |</li> <li class="right" > <a href="difflib.html" title="difflib — Helpers for computing deltas" accesskey="P">previous</a> |</li> <li><img src="../_static/py.png" alt="" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-top: -1px"/></li> <li><a href="https://www.python.org/">Python</a> »</li> <li> <span class="language_switcher_placeholder">en</span> <span class="version_switcher_placeholder">3.7.4</span> <a href="../index.html">Documentation </a> » </li> <li class="nav-item nav-item-1"><a href="index.html" >The Python Standard Library</a> »</li> <li class="nav-item nav-item-2"><a href="text.html" accesskey="U">Text Processing Services</a> »</li> <li class="right"> <div class="inline-search" style="display: none" role="search"> <form class="inline-search" action="../search.html" method="get"> <input placeholder="Quick search" type="text" name="q" /> <input type="submit" value="Go" /> <input type="hidden" name="check_keywords" value="yes" /> <input type="hidden" name="area" value="default" /> </form> </div> <script type="text/javascript">$('.inline-search').show(0);</script> | </li> </ul> </div> <div class="document"> <div class="documentwrapper"> <div class="bodywrapper"> <div class="body" role="main"> <div class="section" id="module-textwrap"> <span id="textwrap-text-wrapping-and-filling"></span><h1><a class="reference internal" href="#module-textwrap" title="textwrap: Text wrapping and filling"><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">textwrap</span></code></a> — Text wrapping and filling<a class="headerlink" href="#module-textwrap" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1> <p><strong>Source code:</strong> <a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/python/cpython/tree/3.7/Lib/textwrap.py">Lib/textwrap.py</a></p> <hr class="docutils" /> <p>The <a class="reference internal" href="#module-textwrap" title="textwrap: Text wrapping and filling"><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">textwrap</span></code></a> module provides some convenience functions, as well as <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper" title="textwrap.TextWrapper"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper</span></code></a>, the class that does all the work. If you’re just wrapping or filling one or two text strings, the convenience functions should be good enough; otherwise, you should use an instance of <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper" title="textwrap.TextWrapper"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper</span></code></a> for efficiency.</p> <dl class="function"> <dt id="textwrap.wrap"> <code class="descclassname">textwrap.</code><code class="descname">wrap</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>text</em>, <em>width=70</em>, <em>**kwargs</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.wrap" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>Wraps the single paragraph in <em>text</em> (a string) so every line is at most <em>width</em> characters long. Returns a list of output lines, without final newlines.</p> <p>Optional keyword arguments correspond to the instance attributes of <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper" title="textwrap.TextWrapper"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper</span></code></a>, documented below. <em>width</em> defaults to <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">70</span></code>.</p> <p>See the <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.wrap" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.wrap"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper.wrap()</span></code></a> method for additional details on how <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.wrap" title="textwrap.wrap"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">wrap()</span></code></a> behaves.</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="function"> <dt id="textwrap.fill"> <code class="descclassname">textwrap.</code><code class="descname">fill</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>text</em>, <em>width=70</em>, <em>**kwargs</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.fill" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>Wraps the single paragraph in <em>text</em>, and returns a single string containing the wrapped paragraph. <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.fill" title="textwrap.fill"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">fill()</span></code></a> is shorthand for</p> <div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="s2">"</span><span class="se">\n</span><span class="s2">"</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">join</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">wrap</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">text</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="o">...</span><span class="p">))</span> </pre></div> </div> <p>In particular, <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.fill" title="textwrap.fill"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">fill()</span></code></a> accepts exactly the same keyword arguments as <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.wrap" title="textwrap.wrap"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">wrap()</span></code></a>.</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="function"> <dt id="textwrap.shorten"> <code class="descclassname">textwrap.</code><code class="descname">shorten</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>text</em>, <em>width</em>, <em>**kwargs</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.shorten" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>Collapse and truncate the given <em>text</em> to fit in the given <em>width</em>.</p> <p>First the whitespace in <em>text</em> is collapsed (all whitespace is replaced by single spaces). If the result fits in the <em>width</em>, it is returned. Otherwise, enough words are dropped from the end so that the remaining words plus the <code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">placeholder</span></code> fit within <code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">width</span></code>:</p> <div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">textwrap</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">shorten</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"Hello world!"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">width</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">12</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="go">'Hello world!'</span> <span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">textwrap</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">shorten</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"Hello world!"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">width</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">11</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="go">'Hello [...]'</span> <span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">textwrap</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">shorten</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"Hello world"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">width</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">placeholder</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">"..."</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="go">'Hello...'</span> </pre></div> </div> <p>Optional keyword arguments correspond to the instance attributes of <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper" title="textwrap.TextWrapper"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper</span></code></a>, documented below. Note that the whitespace is collapsed before the text is passed to the <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper" title="textwrap.TextWrapper"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper</span></code></a> <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.fill" title="textwrap.fill"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">fill()</span></code></a> function, so changing the value of <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.tabsize" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.tabsize"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">tabsize</span></code></a>, <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.expand_tabs" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.expand_tabs"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">expand_tabs</span></code></a>, <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.drop_whitespace" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.drop_whitespace"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">drop_whitespace</span></code></a>, and <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.replace_whitespace" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.replace_whitespace"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">replace_whitespace</span></code></a> will have no effect.</p> <div class="versionadded"> <p><span class="versionmodified added">New in version 3.4.</span></p> </div> </dd></dl> <dl class="function"> <dt id="textwrap.dedent"> <code class="descclassname">textwrap.</code><code class="descname">dedent</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>text</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.dedent" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>Remove any common leading whitespace from every line in <em>text</em>.</p> <p>This can be used to make triple-quoted strings line up with the left edge of the display, while still presenting them in the source code in indented form.</p> <p>Note that tabs and spaces are both treated as whitespace, but they are not equal: the lines <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">"</span>  <span class="pre">hello"</span></code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">"\thello"</span></code> are considered to have no common leading whitespace.</p> <p>Lines containing only whitespace are ignored in the input and normalized to a single newline character in the output.</p> <p>For example:</p> <div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">test</span><span class="p">():</span> <span class="c1"># end first line with \ to avoid the empty line!</span> <span class="n">s</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s1">'''</span><span class="se">\</span> <span class="s1"> hello</span> <span class="s1"> world</span> <span class="s1"> '''</span> <span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">repr</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">s</span><span class="p">))</span> <span class="c1"># prints ' hello\n world\n '</span> <span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">repr</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">dedent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">s</span><span class="p">)))</span> <span class="c1"># prints 'hello\n world\n'</span> </pre></div> </div> </dd></dl> <dl class="function"> <dt id="textwrap.indent"> <code class="descclassname">textwrap.</code><code class="descname">indent</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>text</em>, <em>prefix</em>, <em>predicate=None</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.indent" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>Add <em>prefix</em> to the beginning of selected lines in <em>text</em>.</p> <p>Lines are separated by calling <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">text.splitlines(True)</span></code>.</p> <p>By default, <em>prefix</em> is added to all lines that do not consist solely of whitespace (including any line endings).</p> <p>For example:</p> <div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">s</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s1">'hello</span><span class="se">\n\n</span><span class="s1"> </span><span class="se">\n</span><span class="s1">world'</span> <span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">indent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">s</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">' '</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="go">' hello\n\n \n world'</span> </pre></div> </div> <p>The optional <em>predicate</em> argument can be used to control which lines are indented. For example, it is easy to add <em>prefix</em> to even empty and whitespace-only lines:</p> <div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">indent</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">s</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'+ '</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="k">lambda</span> <span class="n">line</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="kc">True</span><span class="p">))</span> <span class="go">+ hello</span> <span class="go">+</span> <span class="go">+</span> <span class="go">+ world</span> </pre></div> </div> <div class="versionadded"> <p><span class="versionmodified added">New in version 3.3.</span></p> </div> </dd></dl> <p><a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.wrap" title="textwrap.wrap"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">wrap()</span></code></a>, <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.fill" title="textwrap.fill"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">fill()</span></code></a> and <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.shorten" title="textwrap.shorten"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">shorten()</span></code></a> work by creating a <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper" title="textwrap.TextWrapper"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper</span></code></a> instance and calling a single method on it. That instance is not reused, so for applications that process many text strings using <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.wrap" title="textwrap.wrap"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">wrap()</span></code></a> and/or <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.fill" title="textwrap.fill"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">fill()</span></code></a>, it may be more efficient to create your own <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper" title="textwrap.TextWrapper"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper</span></code></a> object.</p> <p>Text is preferably wrapped on whitespaces and right after the hyphens in hyphenated words; only then will long words be broken if necessary, unless <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.break_long_words" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.break_long_words"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper.break_long_words</span></code></a> is set to false.</p> <dl class="class"> <dt id="textwrap.TextWrapper"> <em class="property">class </em><code class="descclassname">textwrap.</code><code class="descname">TextWrapper</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>**kwargs</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>The <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper" title="textwrap.TextWrapper"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper</span></code></a> constructor accepts a number of optional keyword arguments. Each keyword argument corresponds to an instance attribute, so for example</p> <div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">wrapper</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">TextWrapper</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">initial_indent</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">"* "</span><span class="p">)</span> </pre></div> </div> <p>is the same as</p> <div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">wrapper</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">TextWrapper</span><span class="p">()</span> <span class="n">wrapper</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">initial_indent</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s2">"* "</span> </pre></div> </div> <p>You can re-use the same <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper" title="textwrap.TextWrapper"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper</span></code></a> object many times, and you can change any of its options through direct assignment to instance attributes between uses.</p> <p>The <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper" title="textwrap.TextWrapper"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper</span></code></a> instance attributes (and keyword arguments to the constructor) are as follows:</p> <dl class="attribute"> <dt id="textwrap.TextWrapper.width"> <code class="descname">width</code><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.width" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>(default: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">70</span></code>) The maximum length of wrapped lines. As long as there are no individual words in the input text longer than <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.width" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.width"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">width</span></code></a>, <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper" title="textwrap.TextWrapper"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper</span></code></a> guarantees that no output line will be longer than <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.width" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.width"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">width</span></code></a> characters.</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="attribute"> <dt id="textwrap.TextWrapper.expand_tabs"> <code class="descname">expand_tabs</code><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.expand_tabs" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>(default: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">True</span></code>) If true, then all tab characters in <em>text</em> will be expanded to spaces using the <code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">expandtabs()</span></code> method of <em>text</em>.</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="attribute"> <dt id="textwrap.TextWrapper.tabsize"> <code class="descname">tabsize</code><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.tabsize" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>(default: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">8</span></code>) If <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.expand_tabs" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.expand_tabs"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">expand_tabs</span></code></a> is true, then all tab characters in <em>text</em> will be expanded to zero or more spaces, depending on the current column and the given tab size.</p> <div class="versionadded"> <p><span class="versionmodified added">New in version 3.3.</span></p> </div> </dd></dl> <dl class="attribute"> <dt id="textwrap.TextWrapper.replace_whitespace"> <code class="descname">replace_whitespace</code><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.replace_whitespace" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>(default: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">True</span></code>) If true, after tab expansion but before wrapping, the <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.wrap" title="textwrap.wrap"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">wrap()</span></code></a> method will replace each whitespace character with a single space. The whitespace characters replaced are as follows: tab, newline, vertical tab, formfeed, and carriage return (<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">'\t\n\v\f\r'</span></code>).</p> <div class="admonition note"> <p class="admonition-title">Note</p> <p>If <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.expand_tabs" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.expand_tabs"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">expand_tabs</span></code></a> is false and <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.replace_whitespace" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.replace_whitespace"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">replace_whitespace</span></code></a> is true, each tab character will be replaced by a single space, which is <em>not</em> the same as tab expansion.</p> </div> <div class="admonition note"> <p class="admonition-title">Note</p> <p>If <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.replace_whitespace" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.replace_whitespace"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">replace_whitespace</span></code></a> is false, newlines may appear in the middle of a line and cause strange output. For this reason, text should be split into paragraphs (using <a class="reference internal" href="stdtypes.html#str.splitlines" title="str.splitlines"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">str.splitlines()</span></code></a> or similar) which are wrapped separately.</p> </div> </dd></dl> <dl class="attribute"> <dt id="textwrap.TextWrapper.drop_whitespace"> <code class="descname">drop_whitespace</code><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.drop_whitespace" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>(default: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">True</span></code>) If true, whitespace at the beginning and ending of every line (after wrapping but before indenting) is dropped. Whitespace at the beginning of the paragraph, however, is not dropped if non-whitespace follows it. If whitespace being dropped takes up an entire line, the whole line is dropped.</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="attribute"> <dt id="textwrap.TextWrapper.initial_indent"> <code class="descname">initial_indent</code><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.initial_indent" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>(default: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">''</span></code>) String that will be prepended to the first line of wrapped output. Counts towards the length of the first line. The empty string is not indented.</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="attribute"> <dt id="textwrap.TextWrapper.subsequent_indent"> <code class="descname">subsequent_indent</code><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.subsequent_indent" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>(default: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">''</span></code>) String that will be prepended to all lines of wrapped output except the first. Counts towards the length of each line except the first.</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="attribute"> <dt id="textwrap.TextWrapper.fix_sentence_endings"> <code class="descname">fix_sentence_endings</code><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.fix_sentence_endings" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>(default: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">False</span></code>) If true, <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper" title="textwrap.TextWrapper"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper</span></code></a> attempts to detect sentence endings and ensure that sentences are always separated by exactly two spaces. This is generally desired for text in a monospaced font. However, the sentence detection algorithm is imperfect: it assumes that a sentence ending consists of a lowercase letter followed by one of <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">'.'</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">'!'</span></code>, or <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">'?'</span></code>, possibly followed by one of <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">'"'</span></code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">"'"</span></code>, followed by a space. One problem with this is algorithm is that it is unable to detect the difference between “Dr.” in</p> <div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="p">[</span><span class="o">...</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="n">Dr</span><span class="o">.</span> <span class="n">Frankenstein</span><span class="s1">'s monster [...]</span> </pre></div> </div> <p>and “Spot.” in</p> <div class="highlight-python3 notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="p">[</span><span class="o">...</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="n">See</span> <span class="n">Spot</span><span class="o">.</span> <span class="n">See</span> <span class="n">Spot</span> <span class="n">run</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="o">...</span><span class="p">]</span> </pre></div> </div> <p><a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.fix_sentence_endings" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.fix_sentence_endings"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">fix_sentence_endings</span></code></a> is false by default.</p> <p>Since the sentence detection algorithm relies on <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">string.lowercase</span></code> for the definition of “lowercase letter,” and a convention of using two spaces after a period to separate sentences on the same line, it is specific to English-language texts.</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="attribute"> <dt id="textwrap.TextWrapper.break_long_words"> <code class="descname">break_long_words</code><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.break_long_words" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>(default: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">True</span></code>) If true, then words longer than <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.width" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.width"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">width</span></code></a> will be broken in order to ensure that no lines are longer than <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.width" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.width"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">width</span></code></a>. If it is false, long words will not be broken, and some lines may be longer than <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.width" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.width"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">width</span></code></a>. (Long words will be put on a line by themselves, in order to minimize the amount by which <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.width" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.width"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">width</span></code></a> is exceeded.)</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="attribute"> <dt id="textwrap.TextWrapper.break_on_hyphens"> <code class="descname">break_on_hyphens</code><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.break_on_hyphens" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>(default: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">True</span></code>) If true, wrapping will occur preferably on whitespaces and right after hyphens in compound words, as it is customary in English. If false, only whitespaces will be considered as potentially good places for line breaks, but you need to set <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.break_long_words" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.break_long_words"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">break_long_words</span></code></a> to false if you want truly insecable words. Default behaviour in previous versions was to always allow breaking hyphenated words.</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="attribute"> <dt id="textwrap.TextWrapper.max_lines"> <code class="descname">max_lines</code><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.max_lines" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>(default: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">None</span></code>) If not <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">None</span></code>, then the output will contain at most <em>max_lines</em> lines, with <em>placeholder</em> appearing at the end of the output.</p> <div class="versionadded"> <p><span class="versionmodified added">New in version 3.4.</span></p> </div> </dd></dl> <span class="target" id="index-0"></span><dl class="attribute"> <dt id="textwrap.TextWrapper.placeholder"> <code class="descname">placeholder</code><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.placeholder" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>(default: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">'</span> <span class="pre">[...]'</span></code>) String that will appear at the end of the output text if it has been truncated.</p> <div class="versionadded"> <p><span class="versionmodified added">New in version 3.4.</span></p> </div> </dd></dl> <p><a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper" title="textwrap.TextWrapper"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper</span></code></a> also provides some public methods, analogous to the module-level convenience functions:</p> <dl class="method"> <dt id="textwrap.TextWrapper.wrap"> <code class="descname">wrap</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>text</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.wrap" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>Wraps the single paragraph in <em>text</em> (a string) so every line is at most <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.width" title="textwrap.TextWrapper.width"><code class="xref py py-attr docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">width</span></code></a> characters long. All wrapping options are taken from instance attributes of the <a class="reference internal" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper" title="textwrap.TextWrapper"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TextWrapper</span></code></a> instance. Returns a list of output lines, without final newlines. If the wrapped output has no content, the returned list is empty.</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="method"> <dt id="textwrap.TextWrapper.fill"> <code class="descname">fill</code><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em>text</em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#textwrap.TextWrapper.fill" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>Wraps the single paragraph in <em>text</em>, and returns a single string containing the wrapped paragraph.</p> </dd></dl> </dd></dl> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="sphinxsidebar" role="navigation" aria-label="main navigation"> <div class="sphinxsidebarwrapper"> <h4>Previous topic</h4> <p class="topless"><a href="difflib.html" title="previous chapter"><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">difflib</span></code> — Helpers for computing deltas</a></p> <h4>Next topic</h4> <p class="topless"><a href="unicodedata.html" title="next chapter"><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">unicodedata</span></code> — Unicode Database</a></p> <div role="note" aria-label="source link"> <h3>This Page</h3> <ul class="this-page-menu"> <li><a href="../bugs.html">Report a Bug</a></li> <li> <a href="https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/3.7/Doc/library/textwrap.rst" rel="nofollow">Show Source </a> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="clearer"></div> </div> <div class="related" role="navigation" aria-label="related navigation"> <h3>Navigation</h3> <ul> <li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px"> <a href="../genindex.html" title="General Index" >index</a></li> <li class="right" > <a href="../py-modindex.html" title="Python Module Index" >modules</a> |</li> <li class="right" > <a href="unicodedata.html" title="unicodedata — Unicode Database" >next</a> |</li> <li class="right" > <a href="difflib.html" title="difflib — Helpers for computing deltas" >previous</a> |</li> <li><img src="../_static/py.png" alt="" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-top: -1px"/></li> <li><a href="https://www.python.org/">Python</a> »</li> <li> <span class="language_switcher_placeholder">en</span> <span class="version_switcher_placeholder">3.7.4</span> <a href="../index.html">Documentation </a> » </li> <li class="nav-item nav-item-1"><a href="index.html" >The Python Standard Library</a> »</li> <li class="nav-item nav-item-2"><a href="text.html" >Text Processing Services</a> »</li> <li class="right"> <div class="inline-search" style="display: none" role="search"> <form class="inline-search" action="../search.html" method="get"> <input placeholder="Quick search" type="text" name="q" /> <input type="submit" value="Go" /> <input type="hidden" name="check_keywords" value="yes" /> <input type="hidden" name="area" value="default" /> </form> </div> <script type="text/javascript">$('.inline-search').show(0);</script> | </li> </ul> </div> <div class="footer"> © <a href="../copyright.html">Copyright</a> 2001-2019, Python Software Foundation. <br /> The Python Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation. <a href="https://www.python.org/psf/donations/">Please donate.</a> <br /> Last updated on Jul 13, 2019. <a href="../bugs.html">Found a bug</a>? <br /> Created using <a href="http://sphinx.pocoo.org/">Sphinx</a> 2.0.1. </div> </body> </html>