What steps will reproduce the problem? 1. SELECT somestring FROM sometable WHERE somecondition 2. "{:80.80s}".format(somestring) returns blank line 3. print(somestring) shows the string 4. Repeating step 2 now works

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

Expect repeating calls to format() to work the same. In this case format only works after string was altered or printed

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system? OS: Windows 7 Database: MSSQL Reproduced on two different installations: SETUP 1: python-3.3.4.amd64.msi pyodbc-3.0.7.win-amd64-py3.3.exe SETUP 2: Python 3.3.5rc1 pyodbc-3.0.7.win32-py3.3.exe

I reproduced the problem both from IDLE and stand-alone script.

Please provide any additional information below.

My IDLE session:

>>> import pyodbc >>> dbh = pyodbc.connect(driver='{SQL Server}', server='someserver', database='somedb', uid=secretuid, pwd=secretpwd) >>> dbc=dbh.cursor() >>> dbc.execute('select message_txt from ecampaign where campaign_id = ?', 1190788) <pyodbc.Cursor object at 0x032A86B0> >>> for row in dbc: val = row.message_txt

>>> "{:40.40s}".format(val) ' ' >>> "{:40.40s}".format(val) ' ' >>> val[:40] 'The following is information about new p' >>> "{:40.40s}".format(val) 'The following is information about new p' >>> "{:40.40s}".format(val) 'The following is information about new p' >>>

Also any other string operations on val, including "{:s}".format(val) works and triggers subsequent formats to work.

>>> len(val) 4240 >>> type(val) <class 'str'>