I wanted to pad a string with null characters ("\x00"). I know lots of ways to do this, so please do not answer with alternatives. What I want to know is: Why does Python's string.format() function not allow padding with nulls?

Test cases:

>>> "{0:\x01<10}".format("bbb")
'bbb\x01\x01\x01\x01\x01\x01\x01'

This shows that hex-escaped characters work in general.

>>> "{0:\x00<10}".format("bbb")
'bbb       '

But "\x00" gets turned into a space ("\x20").

>>> "{0:{1}<10}".format("bbb","\x00")
'bbb       '
>>> "{0:{1}<10}".format("bbb",chr(0))
'bbb       '

Even trying a couple other ways of doing it.

>>> "bbb" + "\x00" * 7
'bbb\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00'

This works, but doesn't use string.format

>>> spaces = "{0: <10}".format("bbb")
>>> nulls  = "{0:\x00<10}".format("bbb")
>>> spaces == nulls
True

Python is clearly substituting spaces (chr(0x20)) instead of nulls (chr(0x00)).

python string-formatting
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