How to Print Without Newline in Python—A Simple Illustrated Guide

Summary: To print without the newline character in Python 3, set the end argument in the print() function to the empty string or the single whitespace character. This ensures that there won’t be a newline in the standard output after each execution of print(). Alternatively, unpack the iterable into the print() function to avoid the use of multiple print() statements: print(*iter).

Print Without Newline Python (End Argument)

Let’s go over this problem and these two solutions step-by-step.

Problem Formulation

💬 Problem: How to use the print() function without printing an implicit newline character to the Python shell?

Example: Say, you want to use the print() function within a for loop—but you don’t want to see multiple newlines between the printed output:

for i in range(1,5):
    print(i)

Output: The default output is the following:

Desired Output: You want to get the following output in a single line of Python code.

1 2 3 4

How to accomplish this in Python 3?

Let’s have a quick recap of the Python print() function!

Python Print Function – Quick Start Guide

There are two little-used arguments of the print() function in Python.

The argument sep indicates the separator which is printed between the objects.
The argument end defines what comes at the end of each line.

Consider the following example:

a = 'hello'
b = 'world'

print(a, b, sep=' Python ', end='!')
# hello Python world!

To print without newline, you have to do nothing else but override the end argument of the Python print() function. Just replace the default end='\n' with your desired ending string — or the empty string end='' if you don’t want to have any ending character.

Solution 1: End Argument of Print Function

To print the output of the for loop to a single line, you need to define the end argument of the print() function to be something different than the default newline character. In our example, we want to use the empty space after each string we pass into the print() function.

Here’s how you accomplish this:

for i in range(1,5):
    print(i, end=' ')

The shell output concentrates on a single line:

1 2 3 4

By defining the end argument, you can customize the output to your problem.

Feel free to learn more about these customizations of the print() function in the following video:

Solution 2: Unpacking

However, there’s an even more advanced solution that’s more concise and more Pythonic. It makes use of the unpacking feature in Python.

print(*range(1,5))
# 1 2 3 4

The asterisk prefix * before the range(1,5) unpacks all values in the range iterable into the print function.

This way, it becomes similar to the function execution print(1, 2, 3, 4) with comma-separated arguments. You can use an arbitrary number of arguments in the print() function.

Per default, Python will print these arguments with an empty space in between. If you want to customize this separator string, you can use the sep argument as you’ve learned above.

Related Challenge: How to Print a List?

Do you want to print a list to the shell?

Just follow these simple steps:

Pass a list as an input to the print() function in Python.
Use the asterisk operator * in front of the list to “unpack” the list into the print function.
Use the sep argument to define how to separate two list elements visually.

Here’s the code:

# Create the Python List
lst = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

# Use three underscores as separator
print(*lst, sep='___')
# 1___2___3___4___5

# Use an arrow as separator
print(*lst, sep='-->')
# 1-->2-->3-->4-->5

This is the best and most Pythonic way to print a Python list. If you still want to learn about alternatives—and improve your Python skills in the process of doing so—read the following tutorial!

If you want to learn how to print a list without newline, feel free to check out my specific article on the Finxter blog covering this topic in detail.

Where to Go From Here?

Enough theory. Let’s get some practice!

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