# Python Textwrap Module

The `textwrap` module provides some convenience functions, as well as `TextWrapper`, 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 `TextWrapper` for efficiency.

## Importing the Module

```python
import textwrap
```

## Wrapping Text

### `textwrap.wrap()`

Wraps the single paragraph in `text` (a string) so every line is at most `width` characters long. Returns a list of output lines, without final newlines.

```python
import textwrap

sample_text = '''
    The textwrap module can be used to format text for output in
    situations where pretty-printing is desired.  It offers
    programmatic functionality similar to the paragraph wrapping
    or filling features found in many text editors.
    '''

# Dedent first to remove common leading whitespace
dedented_text = textwrap.dedent(sample_text).strip()

print(textwrap.wrap(dedented_text, width=50))
```

### `textwrap.fill()`

Wraps the single paragraph in `text`, and returns a single string containing the wrapped paragraph. `fill()` is shorthand for `"\n".join(wrap(text, ...))`.

```python
import textwrap

print(textwrap.fill(dedented_text, width=50))
```

## Indenting and Dedenting

### `textwrap.dedent()`

Remove any common leading whitespace from every line in `text`. 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.

```python
import textwrap

s = '''\
    Hello
      World
    '''
print(repr(s))          # Output: '    Hello\n      World\n    '
print(repr(textwrap.dedent(s))) # Output: 'Hello\n  World\n'
```

### `textwrap.indent()`

Add `prefix` to the beginning of selected lines in `text`.

```python
import textwrap

s = 'hello\n\n \nworld'
print(textwrap.indent(s, '+ '))
# Output:
# + hello
# +
# +  
# + world
```

## Shortening Text

### `textwrap.shorten()`

Collapse and truncate the given `text` to fit in the given `width`.

```python
import textwrap

text = "Hello world, this is a long text."
print(textwrap.shorten(text, width=20))
# Output: Hello world, [...]
```

You can customize the placeholder.

```python
print(textwrap.shorten(text, width=20, placeholder="..."))
# Output: Hello world, this...
```

[[programming/python/python]]