I'd take the middle road, provide a pad_left/pad_right function or method with keyword arguments for specifying things like the padding character. With how ofte

I'd take the middle road, provide a pad_left/pad_right function or method with keyword arguments for specifying things like the padding character. With how often I need to pad some string (often but not every day), this would be my favourite solution. The standard library having no solution of its own is how you end up with JavaScript and every project reimplementing their 10% of a proper standard library, only slower and with more bugs. Though I won't probably use Python's </>/^ format modifiers in my project, I could maybe see them working out in some software that frequently outputs "monospaced" text. In a particular niche, what we think of a needless character-pinching might be seen as a crucial feature and used daily.