partial string formatting

If you define your own Formatter which overrides the get_value method, you could use that to map undefined field names to whatever you wanted:

http://docs.python.org/library/string.html#string.Formatter.get_value

For instance, you could map bar to "{bar}" if bar isn’t in the kwargs.

However, that requires using the format() method of your Formatter object, not the string’s format() method.

You could wrap it in a function that takes default arguments:

def print_foo_bar(foo='', bar=''):
    s = '{foo} {bar}'
    return s.format(foo=foo, bar=bar)

print_foo_bar(bar='BAR') # ' BAR'

Thanks to Amber‘s comment, I came up with this:

import string

try:
    # Python 3
    from _string import formatter_field_name_split
except ImportError:
    formatter_field_name_split = str._formatter_field_name_split


class PartialFormatter(string.Formatter):
    def get_field(self, field_name, args, kwargs):
        try:
            val = super(PartialFormatter, self).get_field(field_name, args, kwargs)
        except (IndexError, KeyError, AttributeError):
            first, _ = formatter_field_name_split(field_name)
            val = '{' + field_name + '}', first
        return val

If you know in what order you’re formatting things:

s = '{foo} {{bar}}'

Use it like this:

ss = s.format(foo='FOO') 
print ss 
>>> 'FOO {bar}'

print ss.format(bar='BAR')
>>> 'FOO BAR'

You can’t specify foo and bar at the same time – you have to do it sequentially.

This limitation of .format() – the inability to do partial substitutions – has been bugging me.

After evaluating writing a custom Formatter class as described in many answers here and even considering using third-party packages such as lazy_format, I discovered a much simpler inbuilt solution: Template strings

It provides similar functionality but also provides partial substitution thorough safe_substitute() method. The template strings need to have a $ prefix (which feels a bit weird – but the overall solution I think is better).

import string
template = string.Template('${x} ${y}')
try:
  template.substitute({'x':1}) # raises KeyError
except KeyError:
  pass

# but the following raises no error
partial_str = template.safe_substitute({'x':1}) # no error

# partial_str now contains a string with partial substitution
partial_template = string.Template(partial_str)
substituted_str = partial_template.safe_substitute({'y':2}) # no error
print substituted_str # prints '12'

Formed a convenience wrapper based on this:

class StringTemplate(object):
    def __init__(self, template):
        self.template = string.Template(template)
        self.partial_substituted_str = None

    def __repr__(self):
        return self.template.safe_substitute()

    def format(self, *args, **kws):
        self.partial_substituted_str = self.template.safe_substitute(*args, **kws)
        self.template = string.Template(self.partial_substituted_str)
        return self.__repr__()


>>> s = StringTemplate('${x}${y}')
>>> s
'${x}${y}'
>>> s.format(x=1)
'1${y}'
>>> s.format({'y':2})
'12'
>>> print s
12

Similarly a wrapper based on Sven’s answer which uses the default string formatting:

class StringTemplate(object):
    class FormatDict(dict):
        def __missing__(self, key):
            return "{" + key + "}"

    def __init__(self, template):
        self.substituted_str = template
        self.formatter = string.Formatter()

    def __repr__(self):
        return self.substituted_str

    def format(self, *args, **kwargs):
        mapping = StringTemplate.FormatDict(*args, **kwargs)
        self.substituted_str = self.formatter.vformat(self.substituted_str, (), mapping)

Not sure if this is ok as a quick workaround, but how about

s = '{foo} {bar}'
s.format(foo='FOO', bar='{bar}')

? 🙂

>>> 'fd:{uid}:{{topic_id}}'.format(uid=123)
'fd:123:{topic_id}'

Try this out.

For me this was good enough:

>>> ss = 'dfassf {} dfasfae efaef {} fds'
>>> nn = ss.format('f1', '{}')
>>> nn
'dfassf f1 dfasfae efaef {} fds'
>>> n2 = nn.format('whoa')
>>> n2
'dfassf f1 dfasfae efaef whoa fds'

There is one more way to achieve this i.e by using format and % to replace variables. For example:

>>> s = '{foo} %(bar)s'
>>> s = s.format(foo='my_foo')
>>> s
'my_foo %(bar)s'
>>> s % {'bar': 'my_bar'}
'my_foo my_bar'

You could use the partial function from functools which is short, most readable and also describes the coder’s intention:

from functools import partial

s = partial("{foo} {bar}".format, foo="FOO")
print s(bar="BAR")
# FOO BAR

Assuming you won’t use the string until it’s completely filled out, you could do something like this class:

class IncrementalFormatting:
    def __init__(self, string):
        self._args = []
        self._kwargs = {}
        self._string = string

    def add(self, *args, **kwargs):
        self._args.extend(args)
        self._kwargs.update(kwargs)

    def get(self):
        return self._string.format(*self._args, **self._kwargs)

Example:

template = '#{a}:{}/{}?{c}'
message = IncrementalFormatting(template)
message.add('abc')
message.add('xyz', a=24)
message.add(c='lmno')
assert message.get() == '#24:abc/xyz?lmno'

A very ugly but the simplest solution for me is to just do:

tmpl = '{foo}, {bar}'
tmpl.replace('{bar}', 'BAR')
Out[3]: '{foo}, BAR'

This way you still can use tmpl as regular template and perform partial formatting only when needed. I find this problem too trivial to use a overkilling solution like Mohan Raj’s.

My suggestion would be the following (tested with Python3.6):

class Lazymap(object):
       def __init__(self, **kwargs):
           self.dict = kwargs

       def __getitem__(self, key):
           return self.dict.get(key, "".join(["{", key, "}"]))


s = '{foo} {bar}'

s.format_map(Lazymap(bar="FOO"))
# >>> '{foo} FOO'

s.format_map(Lazymap(bar="BAR"))
# >>> '{foo} BAR'

s.format_map(Lazymap(bar="BAR", foo="FOO", baz="BAZ"))
# >>> 'FOO BAR'

Update:
An even more elegant way (subclassing dict and overloading __missing__(self, key)) is shown here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/17215533/333403

After testing the most promising solutions from here and there, I realized that none of them really met the following requirements:

1. strictly adhere to the syntax recognized by str.format_map() for the template;
2. being able to retain complex formatting, i.e. fully supporting the Format Mini-Language

So, I wrote my own solution, which satisfies the above requirements.
(EDIT: now the version by @SvenMarnach — as reported in this answer — seems to handle the corner cases I needed).

Basically, I ended up parsing the template string, finding matching nested {.*?} groups (using a find_all() helper function) and building the formatted string progressively and directly using str.format_map() while catching any potential KeyError.

def find_all(
        text,
        pattern,
        overlap=False):
    """
    Find all occurrencies of the pattern in the text.

    Args:
        text (str|bytes|bytearray): The input text.
        pattern (str|bytes|bytearray): The pattern to find.
        overlap (bool): Detect overlapping patterns.

    Yields:
        position (int): The position of the next finding.
    """
    len_text = len(text)
    offset = 1 if overlap else (len(pattern) or 1)
    i = 0
    while i < len_text:
        i = text.find(pattern, i)
        if i >= 0:
            yield i
            i += offset
        else:
            break

def matching_delimiters(
        text,
        l_delim,
        r_delim,
        including=True):
    """
    Find matching delimiters in a sequence.

    The delimiters are matched according to nesting level.

    Args:
        text (str|bytes|bytearray): The input text.
        l_delim (str|bytes|bytearray): The left delimiter.
        r_delim (str|bytes|bytearray): The right delimiter.
        including (bool): Include delimeters.

    yields:
        result (tuple[int]): The matching delimiters.
    """
    l_offset = len(l_delim) if including else 0
    r_offset = len(r_delim) if including else 0
    stack = []

    l_tokens = set(find_all(text, l_delim))
    r_tokens = set(find_all(text, r_delim))
    positions = l_tokens.union(r_tokens)
    for pos in sorted(positions):
        if pos in l_tokens:
            stack.append(pos + 1)
        elif pos in r_tokens:
            if len(stack) > 0:
                prev = stack.pop()
                yield (prev - l_offset, pos + r_offset, len(stack))
            else:
                raise ValueError(
                    'Found `{}` unmatched right token(s) `{}` (position: {}).'
                        .format(len(r_tokens) - len(l_tokens), r_delim, pos))
    if len(stack) > 0:
        raise ValueError(
            'Found `{}` unmatched left token(s) `{}` (position: {}).'
                .format(
                len(l_tokens) - len(r_tokens), l_delim, stack.pop() - 1))

def safe_format_map(
        text,
        source):
    """
    Perform safe string formatting from a mapping source.

    If a value is missing from source, this is simply ignored, and no
    `KeyError` is raised.

    Args:
        text (str): Text to format.
        source (Mapping|None): The mapping to use as source.
            If None, uses caller's `vars()`.

    Returns:
        result (str): The formatted text.
    """
    stack = []
    for i, j, depth in matching_delimiters(text, '{', '}'):
        if depth == 0:
            try:
                replacing = text[i:j].format_map(source)
            except KeyError:
                pass
            else:
                stack.append((i, j, replacing))
    result = ''
    i, j = len(text), 0
    while len(stack) > 0:
        last_i = i
        i, j, replacing = stack.pop()
        result = replacing + text[j:last_i] + result
    if i > 0:
        result = text[0:i] + result
    return result

(This code is also available in FlyingCircus — DISCLAIMER: I am the main author of it.)

The usage for this code would be:

print(safe_format_map('{a} {b} {c}', dict(a=-A-)))
# -A- {b} {c}

Let’s compare this to the my favourite solution (by @SvenMarnach who kindly shared his code here and there):

import string


class FormatPlaceholder:
    def __init__(self, key):
        self.key = key
    def __format__(self, spec):
        result = self.key
        if spec:
            result += ":" + spec
        return "{" + result + "}"
    def __getitem__(self, index):
        self.key = "{}[{}]".format(self.key, index)
        return self
    def __getattr__(self, attr):
        self.key = "{}.{}".format(self.key, attr)
        return self


class FormatDict(dict):
    def __missing__(self, key):
        return FormatPlaceholder(key)


def safe_format_alt(text, source):
    formatter = string.Formatter()
    return formatter.vformat(text, (), FormatDict(source))

Here are a couple of tests:

test_texts = (
    '{b} {f}',  # simple nothing useful in source
    '{a} {b}',  # simple
    '{a} {b} {c:5d}',  # formatting
    '{a} {b} {c!s}',  # coercion
    '{a} {b} {c!s:>{a}s}',  # formatting and coercion
    '{a} {b} {c:0{a}d}',  # nesting
    '{a} {b} {d[x]}',  # dicts (existing in source)
    '{a} {b} {e.index}',  # class (existing in source)
    '{a} {b} {f[g]}',  # dict (not existing in source)
    '{a} {b} {f.values}',  # class (not existing in source)

)
source = dict(a=4, c=101, d=dict(x='FOO'), e=[])

and the code to make it running:

funcs = safe_format_map, safe_format_alt

n = 18
for text in test_texts:
    full_source = {**dict(b='---', f=dict(g='Oh yes!')), **source}
    print('{:>{n}s} :   OK   : '.format('str.format_map', n=n) + text.format_map(full_source))
    for func in funcs:
        try:
            print(f'{func.__name__:>{n}s} :   OK   : ' + func(text, source))
        except:
            print(f'{func.__name__:>{n}s} : FAILED : {text}')

resulting in:

    str.format_map :   OK   : --- {'g': 'Oh yes!'}
   safe_format_map :   OK   : {b} {f}
   safe_format_alt :   OK   : {b} {f}
    str.format_map :   OK   : 4 ---
   safe_format_map :   OK   : 4 {b}
   safe_format_alt :   OK   : 4 {b}
    str.format_map :   OK   : 4 ---   101
   safe_format_map :   OK   : 4 {b}   101
   safe_format_alt :   OK   : 4 {b}   101
    str.format_map :   OK   : 4 --- 101
   safe_format_map :   OK   : 4 {b} 101
   safe_format_alt :   OK   : 4 {b} 101
    str.format_map :   OK   : 4 ---  101
   safe_format_map :   OK   : 4 {b}  101
   safe_format_alt :   OK   : 4 {b}  101
    str.format_map :   OK   : 4 --- 0101
   safe_format_map :   OK   : 4 {b} 0101
   safe_format_alt :   OK   : 4 {b} 0101
    str.format_map :   OK   : 4 --- FOO
   safe_format_map :   OK   : 4 {b} FOO
   safe_format_alt :   OK   : 4 {b} FOO
    str.format_map :   OK   : 4 --- <built-in method index of list object at 0x7f7a485666c8>
   safe_format_map :   OK   : 4 {b} <built-in method index of list object at 0x7f7a485666c8>
   safe_format_alt :   OK   : 4 {b} <built-in method index of list object at 0x7f7a485666c8>
    str.format_map :   OK   : 4 --- Oh yes!
   safe_format_map :   OK   : 4 {b} {f[g]}
   safe_format_alt :   OK   : 4 {b} {f[g]}
    str.format_map :   OK   : 4 --- <built-in method values of dict object at 0x7f7a485da090>
   safe_format_map :   OK   : 4 {b} {f.values}
   safe_format_alt :   OK   : 4 {b} {f.values}

as you can see, the updated version now seems to handle well the corner cases where the earlier version used to fail.

Timewise, they are within approx. 50% of each other, depending on the actual text to format (and likely the actual source), but safe_format_map() seems to have an edge in most of the tests I performed (whatever they mean, of course):

for text in test_texts:
    print(f'  {text}')
    %timeit safe_format(text * 1000, source)
    %timeit safe_format_alt(text * 1000, source)

  {b} {f}
3.93 ms ± 153 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
6.35 ms ± 51.9 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
  {a} {b}
4.37 ms ± 57.1 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
5.2 ms ± 159 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
  {a} {b} {c:5d}
7.15 ms ± 91.9 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
7.76 ms ± 69.5 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
  {a} {b} {c!s}
7.04 ms ± 138 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
7.56 ms ± 161 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
  {a} {b} {c!s:>{a}s}
8.91 ms ± 113 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
10.5 ms ± 181 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
  {a} {b} {c:0{a}d}
8.84 ms ± 147 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
10.2 ms ± 202 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
  {a} {b} {d[x]}
7.01 ms ± 197 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
7.35 ms ± 106 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
  {a} {b} {e.index}
11 ms ± 68.8 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
8.78 ms ± 405 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
  {a} {b} {f[g]}
6.55 ms ± 88.6 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
9.12 ms ± 159 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
  {a} {b} {f.values}
6.61 ms ± 55.9 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
9.92 ms ± 98.8 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)

If you’d like to unpack a dictionary to pass arguments to format, as in this related question, you could use the following method.

First assume the string s is the same as in this question:

s = '{foo} {bar}'

and the values are given by the following dictionary:

replacements = {'foo': 'FOO'}

Clearly this won’t work:

s.format(**replacements)
#---------------------------------------------------------------------------
#KeyError                                  Traceback (most recent call last)
#<ipython-input-29-ef5e51de79bf> in <module>()
#----> 1 s.format(**replacements)
#
#KeyError: 'bar'

However, you could first get a set of all of the named arguments from s and create a dictionary that maps the argument to itself wrapped in curly braces:

from string import Formatter
args = {x[1]:'{'+x[1]+'}' for x in Formatter().parse(s)}
print(args)
#{'foo': '{foo}', 'bar': '{bar}'}

Now use the args dictionary to fill in the missing keys in replacements. For python 3.5+, you can do this in a single expression:

new_s = s.format(**{**args, **replacements}}
print(new_s)
#'FOO {bar}'

For older versions of python, you could call update:

args.update(replacements)
print(s.format(**args))
#'FOO {bar}'

I like @sven-marnach answer. My answer is simply an extended version of it. It allows non-keyword formatting and ignores extra keys. Here are examples of usage (the name of a function is a reference to python 3.6 f-string formatting):

# partial string substitution by keyword
>>> f('{foo} {bar}', foo="FOO")
'FOO {bar}'

# partial string substitution by argument
>>> f('{} {bar}', 1)
'1 {bar}'

>>> f('{foo} {}', 1)
'{foo} 1'

# partial string substitution with arguments and keyword mixed
>>> f('{foo} {} {bar} {}', '|', bar='BAR')
'{foo} | BAR {}'

# partial string substitution with extra keyword
>>> f('{foo} {bar}', foo="FOO", bro="BRO")
'FOO {bar}'

# you can simply 'pour out' your dictionary to format function
>>> kwargs = {'foo': 'FOO', 'bro': 'BRO'}
>>> f('{foo} {bar}', **kwargs)
'FOO {bar}'

And here is my code:

from string import Formatter


class FormatTuple(tuple):
    def __getitem__(self, key):
        if key + 1 > len(self):
            return "{}"
        return tuple.__getitem__(self, key)


class FormatDict(dict):
    def __missing__(self, key):
        return "{" + key + "}"


def f(string, *args, **kwargs):
    """
    String safe substitute format method.
    If you pass extra keys they will be ignored.
    If you pass incomplete substitute map, missing keys will be left unchanged.
    :param string:
    :param kwargs:
    :return:

    >>> f('{foo} {bar}', foo="FOO")
    'FOO {bar}'
    >>> f('{} {bar}', 1)
    '1 {bar}'
    >>> f('{foo} {}', 1)
    '{foo} 1'
    >>> f('{foo} {} {bar} {}', '|', bar='BAR')
    '{foo} | BAR {}'
    >>> f('{foo} {bar}', foo="FOO", bro="BRO")
    'FOO {bar}'
    """
    formatter = Formatter()
    args_mapping = FormatTuple(args)
    mapping = FormatDict(kwargs)
    return formatter.vformat(string, args_mapping, mapping)

If you’re doing a lot of templating and finding Python’s built in string templating functionality to be insufficient or clunky, look at Jinja2.

From the docs:

Jinja is a modern and designer-friendly templating language for Python, modelled after Django’s templates.

All the solutions I’ve found seemed to have issues with more advanced spec or conversion options. @SvenMarnach’s FormatPlaceholder is wonderfully clever but it doesn’t work properly with coercion (e.g. {a!s:>2s}) because it calls the __str__ method (in this example) instead of __format__ and you lose any additional formatting.

Here’s what I ended up with and some of it’s key features:

sformat('The {} is {}', 'answer')
'The answer is {}'

sformat('The answer to {question!r} is {answer:0.2f}', answer=42)
'The answer to {question!r} is 42.00'

sformat('The {} to {} is {:0.{p}f}', 'answer', 'everything', p=4)
'The answer to everything is {:0.4f}'

• provides similar interface as str.format (not just a mapping)
• supports more complex formatting options:
  • coercion {k!s} {!r}
  • nesting {k:>{size}}
  • getattr {k.foo}
  • getitem {k[0]}
  • coercion+formatting {k!s:>{size}}

import string


class SparseFormatter(string.Formatter):
    """
    A modified string formatter that handles a sparse set of format
    args/kwargs.
    """

    # re-implemented this method for python2/3 compatibility
    def vformat(self, format_string, args, kwargs):
        used_args = set()
        result, _ = self._vformat(format_string, args, kwargs, used_args, 2)
        self.check_unused_args(used_args, args, kwargs)
        return result

    def _vformat(self, format_string, args, kwargs, used_args, recursion_depth,
                 auto_arg_index=0):
        if recursion_depth < 0:
            raise ValueError('Max string recursion exceeded')
        result = []
        for literal_text, field_name, format_spec, conversion in 
                self.parse(format_string):

            orig_field_name = field_name

            # output the literal text
            if literal_text:
                result.append(literal_text)

            # if there's a field, output it
            if field_name is not None:
                # this is some markup, find the object and do
                #  the formatting

                # handle arg indexing when empty field_names are given.
                if field_name == '':
                    if auto_arg_index is False:
                        raise ValueError('cannot switch from manual field '
                                         'specification to automatic field '
                                         'numbering')
                    field_name = str(auto_arg_index)
                    auto_arg_index += 1
                elif field_name.isdigit():
                    if auto_arg_index:
                        raise ValueError('cannot switch from manual field '
                                         'specification to automatic field '
                                         'numbering')
                    # disable auto arg incrementing, if it gets
                    # used later on, then an exception will be raised
                    auto_arg_index = False

                # given the field_name, find the object it references
                #  and the argument it came from
                try:
                    obj, arg_used = self.get_field(field_name, args, kwargs)
                except (IndexError, KeyError):
                    # catch issues with both arg indexing and kwarg key errors
                    obj = orig_field_name
                    if conversion:
                        obj += '!{}'.format(conversion)
                    if format_spec:
                        format_spec, auto_arg_index = self._vformat(
                            format_spec, args, kwargs, used_args,
                            recursion_depth, auto_arg_index=auto_arg_index)
                        obj += ':{}'.format(format_spec)
                    result.append('{' + obj + '}')
                else:
                    used_args.add(arg_used)

                    # do any conversion on the resulting object
                    obj = self.convert_field(obj, conversion)

                    # expand the format spec, if needed
                    format_spec, auto_arg_index = self._vformat(
                        format_spec, args, kwargs,
                        used_args, recursion_depth-1,
                        auto_arg_index=auto_arg_index)

                    # format the object and append to the result
                    result.append(self.format_field(obj, format_spec))

        return ''.join(result), auto_arg_index


def sformat(s, *args, **kwargs):
    # type: (str, *Any, **Any) -> str
    """
    Sparse format a string.

    Parameters
    ----------
    s : str
    args : *Any
    kwargs : **Any

    Examples
    --------
    >>> sformat('The {} is {}', 'answer')
    'The answer is {}'

    >>> sformat('The answer to {question!r} is {answer:0.2f}', answer=42)
    'The answer to {question!r} is 42.00'

    >>> sformat('The {} to {} is {:0.{p}f}', 'answer', 'everything', p=4)
    'The answer to everything is {:0.4f}'

    Returns
    -------
    str
    """
    return SparseFormatter().format(s, *args, **kwargs)

I discovered the issues with the various implementations after writing some tests on how I wanted this method to behave. They’re below if anyone finds them insightful.

import pytest


def test_auto_indexing():
    # test basic arg auto-indexing
    assert sformat('{}{}', 4, 2) == '42'
    assert sformat('{}{} {}', 4, 2) == '42 {}'


def test_manual_indexing():
    # test basic arg indexing
    assert sformat('{0}{1} is not {1} or {0}', 4, 2) == '42 is not 2 or 4'
    assert sformat('{0}{1} is {3} {1} or {0}', 4, 2) == '42 is {3} 2 or 4'


def test_mixing_manualauto_fails():
    # test mixing manual and auto args raises
    with pytest.raises(ValueError):
        assert sformat('{!r} is {0}{1}', 4, 2)


def test_kwargs():
    # test basic kwarg
    assert sformat('{base}{n}', base=4, n=2) == '42'
    assert sformat('{base}{n}', base=4, n=2, extra='foo') == '42'
    assert sformat('{base}{n} {key}', base=4, n=2) == '42 {key}'


def test_args_and_kwargs():
    # test mixing args/kwargs with leftovers
    assert sformat('{}{k} {v}', 4, k=2) == '42 {v}'

    # test mixing with leftovers
    r = sformat('{}{} is the {k} to {!r}', 4, 2, k='answer')
    assert r == '42 is the answer to {!r}'


def test_coercion():
    # test coercion is preserved for skipped elements
    assert sformat('{!r} {k!r}', '42') == "'42' {k!r}"


def test_nesting():
    # test nesting works with or with out parent keys
    assert sformat('{k:>{size}}', k=42, size=3) == ' 42'
    assert sformat('{k:>{size}}', size=3) == '{k:>3}'


@pytest.mark.parametrize(
    ('s', 'expected'),
    [
        ('{a} {b}', '1 2.0'),
        ('{z} {y}', '{z} {y}'),
        ('{a} {a:2d} {a:04d} {y:2d} {z:04d}', '1  1 0001 {y:2d} {z:04d}'),
        ('{a!s} {z!s} {d!r}', '1 {z!s} {'k': 'v'}'),
        ('{a!s:>2s} {z!s:>2s}', ' 1 {z!s:>2s}'),
        ('{a!s:>{a}s} {z!s:>{z}s}', '1 {z!s:>{z}s}'),
        ('{a.imag} {z.y}', '0 {z.y}'),
        ('{e[0]:03d} {z[0]:03d}', '042 {z[0]:03d}'),
    ],
    ids=[
        'normal',
        'none',
        'formatting',
        'coercion',
        'formatting+coercion',
        'nesting',
        'getattr',
        'getitem',
    ]
)
def test_sformat(s, expected):
    # test a bunch of random stuff
    data = dict(
        a=1,
        b=2.0,
        c='3',
        d={'k': 'v'},
        e=[42],
    )
    assert expected == sformat(s, **data)

Reading @Sam Bourne comment, I modified @SvenMarnach’s code
to work properly with coercion (like {a!s:>2s}) without writing a custom parser.
The basic idea is not to convert to strings but concatenate missing keys with coercion tags.

import string
class MissingKey(object):
    def __init__(self, key):
        self.key = key

    def __str__(self):  # Supports {key!s}
        return MissingKeyStr("".join([self.key, "!s"]))

    def __repr__(self):  # Supports {key!r}
        return MissingKeyStr("".join([self.key, "!r"]))

    def __format__(self, spec): # Supports {key:spec}
        if spec:
            return "".join(["{", self.key, ":", spec, "}"])
        return "".join(["{", self.key, "}"])

    def __getitem__(self, i): # Supports {key[i]}
        return MissingKey("".join([self.key, "[", str(i), "]"]))

    def __getattr__(self, name): # Supports {key.name}
        return MissingKey("".join([self.key, ".", name]))


class MissingKeyStr(MissingKey, str):
    def __init__(self, key):
        if isinstance(key, MissingKey):
            self.key = "".join([key.key, "!s"])
        else:
            self.key = key

class SafeFormatter(string.Formatter):
    def __init__(self, default=lambda k: MissingKey(k)):
        self.default=default

    def get_value(self, key, args, kwds):
        if isinstance(key, str):
            return kwds.get(key, self.default(key))
        else:
            return super().get_value(key, args, kwds)

Use (for example) like this

SafeFormatter().format("{a:<5} {b:<10}", a=10)

The following tests (inspired by tests from @norok2) check the output for the traditional format_map and a safe_format_map based on the class above in two cases: providing correct keywords or without them.

def safe_format_map(text, source):
    return SafeFormatter().format(text, **source)

test_texts = (
    '{a} ',             # simple nothing useful in source
    '{a:5d}',       # formatting
    '{a!s}',        # coercion
    '{a!s:>{a}s}',  # formatting and coercion
    '{a:0{a}d}',    # nesting
    '{d[x]}',       # indexing
    '{d.values}',   # member
)

source = dict(a=10,d=dict(x='FOO'))
funcs = [safe_format_map,
         str.format_map
         #safe_format_alt  # Version based on parsing (See @norok2)
         ]
n = 18
for text in test_texts:
    # full_source = {**dict(b='---', f=dict(g='Oh yes!')), **source}
    # print('{:>{n}s} :   OK   : '.format('str.format_map', n=n) + text.format_map(full_source))
    print("Testing:", text)
    for func in funcs:
        try:
            print(f'{func.__name__:>{n}s} : OKttt: ' + func(text, dict()))
        except:
            print(f'{func.__name__:>{n}s} : FAILED')

        try:
            print(f'{func.__name__:>{n}s} : OKttt: ' + func(text, source))
        except:
            print(f'{func.__name__:>{n}s} : FAILED')

Which outputs

Testing: {a} 
   safe_format_map : OK         : {a} 
   safe_format_map : OK         : 10 
        format_map : FAILED
        format_map : OK         : 10 
Testing: {a:5d}
   safe_format_map : OK         : {a:5d}
   safe_format_map : OK         :    10
        format_map : FAILED
        format_map : OK         :    10
Testing: {a!s}
   safe_format_map : OK         : {a!s}
   safe_format_map : OK         : 10
        format_map : FAILED
        format_map : OK         : 10
Testing: {a!s:>{a}s}
   safe_format_map : OK         : {a!s:>{a}s}
   safe_format_map : OK         :         10
        format_map : FAILED
        format_map : OK         :         10
Testing: {a:0{a}d}
   safe_format_map : OK         : {a:0{a}d}
   safe_format_map : OK         : 0000000010
        format_map : FAILED
        format_map : OK         : 0000000010
Testing: {d[x]}
   safe_format_map : OK         : {d[x]}
   safe_format_map : OK         : FOO
        format_map : FAILED
        format_map : OK         : FOO
Testing: {d.values}
   safe_format_map : OK         : {d.values}
   safe_format_map : OK         : <built-in method values of dict object at 0x7fe61e230af8>
        format_map : FAILED
        format_map : OK         : <built-in method values of dict object at 0x7fe61e230af8>

Here’s a mildly-hacky regex-based solution. Note that this will NOT work with nested format specifiers like {foo:{width}}, but it does fix some of the problems that other answers have.

def partial_format(s, **kwargs):
    parts = re.split(r'({[^}]*})', s)
    for k, v in kwargs.items():
        for idx, part in enumerate(parts):
            if re.match(rf'{{{k}[!:}}]', part):  # Placeholder keys must always be followed by '!', ':', or the closing '}'
                parts[idx] = parts[idx].format_map({k: v})
    return ''.join(parts)

# >>> partial_format('{foo} {bar:1.3f}', foo='FOO')
# 'FOO {bar:1.3f}'
# >>> partial_format('{foo} {bar:1.3f}', bar=1)
# '{foo} 1.000'

TL;DR: Problem: defaultdict fails for {foobar[a]} if foobar is not set:

from collections import defaultdict

text = "{bar}, {foo}, {foobar[a]}" # {bar} is set, {foo} is "", {foobar[a]} fails
text.format_map(defaultdict(str, bar="A")) # TypeError: string indices must be integers

Solution: Copy DefaultWrapper class from the Edit, then:

text = "{bar}, {foo}, {foobar[a]}"
text.format_map(DefaultWrapper(bar="A")) # "A, , " (missing replaced with empty str)

# Even this works:
foobar = {"c": "C"}
text = "{foobar[a]}, {foobar[c]}"
text.format_map(DefaultWrapper(foobar=foobar)) # ", C" missing indices are also replaced

Note that indexing and attribute access does not work in one of the posted solutions. The following code raises a TypeError: string indices must be integers.

from collections import defaultdict

text = "{foo} '{bar[index]}'"
text.format_map(defaultdict(str, foo="FOO")) # raises a TypeError

To solve this problem one can use the collections.defaultdict solution together with a custom default value object which supports indexing. The DefaultWrapper object returns itself on index and attribute access which allows to index/use attributes unlimited times without errors.

Note that this can be exteded to allow containers that contain parts of the requested values. Check out the Edit below.

class DefaultWrapper:
    def __repr__(self):
        return "Empty default value"
    
    def __str__(self):
        return ""
    
    def __format__(self, format_spec):
        return ""
    
    def __getattr__(self, name):
        return self
    
    def __getitem__(self, name):
        return self
    
    def __contains__(self, name):
        return True

text = "'{foo}', '{bar[index][i]}'"
print(text.format_map(defaultdict(DefaultWrapper, foo="FOO")))
# 'FOO', ''

Edit: Partly filled containers

The above class can be extended to support partly filled containers. So for example

text = "'{foo[a]}', '{foo[b]}'"
foo = {"a": "A"}

print(text.format_map(defaultdict(DefaultWrapper, foo=foo)))
# KeyError: 'b'

The idea is to replace the defaultdict completely with the DefaultWrapper. The DefaultWrapper object wraps around the container returning the containers requested value (wrapped with a DefaultWrapper object) or the container as a string. This way an infinite depth of the map is immitated but all present values are returned.

The kwargs is added for convenience only. This way it looks more like the defaultdict solution.

class DefaultWrapper:
    """A wrapper around the `container` to allow accessing with a default value."""
    ignore_str_format_errors = True

    def __init__(self, container="", **kwargs):
        self.container = container
        self.kwargs = kwargs

    def __repr__(self):
        return "DefaultWrapper around '{}'".format(repr(self.container))

    def __str__(self):
        return str(self.container)
    
    def __format__(self, format_spec):
        try:
            return self.container.__format__(format_spec)
        except TypeError as e:
            if DefaultWrapper.ignore_str_format_errors or self.container == "":
                return str(self)
            else:
                raise e

    def __getattr__(self, name):
        try:
            return DefaultWrapper(getattr(self.container, name))
        except AttributeError:
            return DefaultWrapper()

    def __getitem__(self, name):
        try:
            return DefaultWrapper(self.container[name])
        except (TypeError, LookupError):
            try:
                return DefaultWrapper(self.kwargs[name])
            except (TypeError, LookupError):
                return DefaultWrapper()
        
    def __contains__(self, name):
        return True

Now all the shown examples work without errors:

text = "'{foo[a]}', '{foo[b]}'"
foo = {"a": "A"}
print(text.format_map(DefaultWrapper(foo=foo)))
# 'A', ''

text = "'{foo}', '{bar[index][i]}', '{foobar[a]}', '{foobar[b]}'"
print(text.format_map(DefaultWrapper(foo="Foo", foobar={"a": "A"})))
# 'FOO', '', 'A', ''

# the old way still works the same as before
from collections import defaultdict
text = "'{foo}', '{bar[index][i]}'"
print(text.format_map(defaultdict(DefaultWrapper, foo="FOO")))
# 'FOO', ''

This is how we managed to do this:

import traceback


def grab_key_from_exc(exc):
    last_line_idx = exc[:-1].rfind('n')
    last_line = exc[last_line_idx:]
    
    quote_start = last_line.find("'")
    quote_end = last_line.rfind("'")

    key_name = last_line[quote_start+1:quote_end]
    return key_name


def partial_format(input_string, **kwargs):
    while True:
        try:
            return input_string.format(**kwargs)
        except:
            exc = traceback.format_exc()
            key = grab_key_from_exc(exc)
            kwargs[key] = '{'+key+'}'