sprintf like functionality in Python

Python has a % operator for this.

>>> a = 5
>>> b = "hello"
>>> buf = "A = %d\n , B = %s\n" % (a, b)
>>> print buf
A = 5
 , B = hello

>>> c = 10
>>> buf = "C = %d\n" % c
>>> print buf
C = 10

See this reference for all supported format specifiers.

You could as well use format:

>>> print "This is the {}th tome of {}".format(5, "knowledge")
This is the 5th tome of knowledge