Since 3.4.1, string.Formatter() accepts empty keys {}. If these are nested they give different results from explicitly numbered, where the same arguments applied "".format() give the expected results: from string import Formatter f = Formatter() fmt0 = "X {:<{}} {} X" fmt1 = "X {0:<{1}} {2} X" for fmt in [fmt0, fmt1]: x = f.format(fmt, 'ab', 5, 1) y = fmt.format( 'ab', 5, 1) print(x) print(y) gives: X ab 5 X X ab 1 X X ab 1 X X ab 1 X of which the first line is incorrect.

Here is a patch for Python-3.5.0rc3/Lib/test/test_string.py unittests fail: --- /opt/python/3.5/lib/python3.5/test/test_string.py	2015-09-08 17:06:07.099197904 +0200 +++ test_string.py	2015-09-08 21:47:01.471634309 +0200 @@ -58,6 +58,8 @@ 'foo{1}{num}{1}'.format(None, 'bar', num=6)) self.assertEqual(fmt.format('{:^{}}', 'bar', 6), '{:^{}}'.format('bar', 6)) + self.assertEqual(fmt.format('{:^{}} {}', 'bar', 6, 'X'), + '{:^{}} {}'.format('bar', 6, 'X')) self.assertEqual(fmt.format('{:^{pad}}{}', 'foo', 'bar', pad=6), '{:^{pad}}{}'.format('foo', 'bar', pad=6))

The problem lies in the recursive call to _vformat which might consume fields without name ({}) and increment auto_arg_index, but that incremented value was not returned to the parent. Since the line became longer than pep8 allowed I wrapped all of the method call arguments to the next line, hope that that's ok. The patch is against the mercurial repository and works for 3.4.1 upwards.

New changeset 9eae18e8af66 by Eric V. Smith in branch '3.4': Fixed issue #25034: Fix string.Formatter problem with auto-numbering https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/9eae18e8af66 New changeset 65d7b4fd0332 by Eric V. Smith in branch '3.5': Issue #25034: Merge from 3.4. https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/65d7b4fd0332 New changeset aef6365294c8 by Eric V. Smith in branch 'default': Issue #25034: Merge from 3.5. https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/aef6365294c8

Fixed in 3.4, 3.5, and 3.6. Thanks for the bug report and patch! I added you to the Misc/ACKS file.

I don't suppose this change could make it into 2.7.11 as well? Thanks, Bill