Python: how to pad a number with leading zeros

Question

How can I pad a numeric value on the left with zeros? I want to do this for the alignment of values in a column.

E.g.

12 -> 00012

Answer 1

You need to convert the numeric value to string and then you apply the method zfill() on the string to pad it with zeros on the left.

E.g.

>>> str(12).zfill(5)
'00012'

If you want to right-justify a string, you can use the method rjust() to pad it with spaces on the left. 

E.g.

>>> str(12).rjust(5)
'   12'