It is a string formatting syntax (which it borrows from C).
Please see "Formatting Strings":
Python supports formatting values into strings. Although this can include very complicated expressions, the most basic usage is to insert values into a string with the
%s
placeholder.
Edit: Here is a really simple example:
name = raw_input("who are you?")
print "hello %s" % (name,)
The %s
token allows me to insert (and potentially format) a string. Notice that the %s
token is replaced by whatever I pass to the string after the %
symbol. Notice also that I am using a tuple here as well (when you only have one string using a tuple is optional) to illustrate that multiple strings can be inserted and formatted in one statement.
And just to help you out a bit more, here's how you use multiple formatting in one string
"Hello %s, my name is %s" % ('john', 'mike') # Hello john, my name is mike".
If you are using ints instead of string, use %d instead of %s.
"My name is %s and i'm %d" % ('john', 12) #My name is john and i'm 12