Print Statement & Comments

Table of Contents

• The print() Statement
  • Basic usage
  • Printing multiple things
  • The sep and end parameters
  • Printing a blank line
  • Printing variables
• Comments
  • Single-line comments
  • When to actually use comments
  • Multi-line comments
• Try It Yourself

The print() Statement

So, what is a print statement? Honestly, its just a way to show something on the screen. When you run your code, the computer does all the calculations but you cant see anything unless you tell it to show you. Thats where print() comes in.

Think of print() like your voice. Without it, your code runs silently. With it, your code can talk back to you.

Basic usage

print("Hello, World!")

Simple, right? Run that and youll see Hello, World! appear on your screen. Thats it. You just made your first Python program. Pat yourself on the back.

Printing multiple things

You can throw multiple things inside print() and Python will automatically put a space between them:

print("My name is", "John", "and I'm", 25, "years old")

Itll show: My name is John and I'm 25 years old

Notice how I mixed text and a number (25) together? Python handles that without breaking a sweat. You dont need to convert anything.

The sep and end parameters

Okay these two are kind of cool. By default, print() puts a space between items and adds a newline at the end. But you can change both:

• sep controls whats put between your items
• end controls whats put at the end (after the last item)

# Put a dash between items instead of a space
print("apple", "banana", "cherry", sep=" - ")

# Dont go to a new line after printing
print("Loading", end="...")
print("Done!")

Output:

apple - banana - cherry
Loading...Done!

See how Loading and Done! ended up on the same line? Thats because we changed end from a newline to .... The second print just continued where the first one left off.

Printing a blank line

Sometimes you just want some empty space in your output. Easy:

print("Line 1")
print()
print("Line 3")  # Line 2 is blank

Literally just print() with nothing inside. Handy for making your output not look like a wall of text.

Printing variables

Youll do this constantly. Like, constantly. Youll want to know what value a variable holds, so you print it:

name = "Sarah"
age = 30
print("Name:", name, "| Age:", age)

But theres a cleaner way. Youll see this everywhere in real Python projects — f-strings:

print(f"Name: {name} | Age: {age}")

The f before the string and the {} curly braces let you plop variables right into the text. Same output, less messy looking code. I use f-strings like 90% of the time honestly.

Comments

Alright so comments. What are they? Theyre notes you leave in your code that Python completely ignores. They dont do anything. They just sit there, quietly, for humans to read.

Why would you need them? Because code is not always obvious. Sometimes you write something tricky and three months later you come back and have no idea what you were thinking. Comments save you from your own past self.

Single-line comments

Use the # symbol and everything after it on that line is ignored:

# This is a comment. Python wont run this.
print("But it will run this!")  # Comments can go at the end of a line too

When to actually use comments

Here is the thing. Not every line needs a comment. In fact, if your code is clean, most of it should speak for itself. Comments are for explaining why you did something, not what you did.

Good times to use comments:

1. When the logic is confusing — a weird math formula, a tricky algorithm
2. When theres a reason behind a number — why 0.095? Because tax.
3. When you need a reminder — TODO notes, warnings, stuff you need to fix later

# Calculate tax with 9.5% rate (state + county combined)
tax = price * 0.095

# TODO: add support for international tax rates later

Dont do this though. This is just noise:

x = x + 1  # increment x by 1   <- no kidding, thanks for that

Multi-line comments

Python doesnt have a special way to write multi-line comments. But people sometimes use triple-quoted strings for that:

"""
This is a multi-line comment
using triple quotes. Python ignores
it because its not assigned to anything.
"""
print("See? Works fine.")

But honestly? Most developers just use multiple # lines. Its cleaner and more intentional.

Try It Yourself

# Copy this whole block and run it

print("Welcome to Python!")

# This is a comment — try changing the text below
print("Im learning", "Python", "and loving it!")

# Experiment with sep and end
print("One", "Two", "Three", sep=" | ", end=" ----> ")
print("Done!")

# f-string example
language = "Python"
version = 3
print(f"Im learning {language} {version}!")
print(f"7 + 5 = {7 + 5}")  # you can even put expressions inside {}

Save it as test.py and run with:

python test.py