How can you use a variable name inside a Python format specifier

Python f-string is more flexible.

>>> display_width = 50
>>> display_content = "some text here"
>>> print(f'\n{display_content:^{display_width}}')

                  some text here

Yes, but you have to pass them in as arguments to format, and then refer to them wrapped in {} like you would the argument name itself:

print('\n{:^{display_width}}'.format('some text here', display_width=display_width))

Or shorter but a little less explicit:

print('\n{:^{}}'.format('some text here', display_width))

Since this question was originally posted, Python 3.6 has added f-strings, which allow you to do this without using the format method and it uses variables which are in scope rather than having to pass in the named variables as keyword arguments:

display_width = 50
text = 'some text here'
print(f'\n{text:^{display_width}}')